How does Europe manage waste?

For some, taking out the trash is a burden, while others can get nerdy at correctly separating garbage: attitudes towards waste change differ. With 2050 being the deadline for Europe’s climate neutrality, we need to curb our litter production and reuse more. Good news: In the past few years, we have gotten better at it.

According to the EU statistical office Eurostat, 61.4% of the waste produced in the bloc in 2022 was recovered. Waste recovery includes recycling, backfilling—using waste materials, such as construction debris, to fill voids and cavities—and incineration with energy recovery. Since 2004, the amount of recovered waste has risen by 40.6%, the disposal share has decreased, and the total waste produced has grown by 5%.

Varying practices

Although the majority of EU’s waste was recovered, there is still a significant chunk of waste produced that ended up in landfills (30.2%), was incinerated without energy recovery (0.4%), or disposed of otherwise (8%).

Within the bloc, practices vary widely. Over 90% of Romania and Bulgaria’s trash goes to landfills, as well as more than 80% of Finland’s. On the other hand, Italy and Belgium recover over 90% of their waste—specifically, they recycle 85.6% and 68.3%, respectively. Only marginal shares of trash end in dumps in Denmark and Slovenia, which are also able to recover most of it.

What about the Netherlands?

The same Eurostat database provides detailed data about each country up to 2022. The line chart below shows that most treated waste is recycled or backfilled, with a lower share used for energy recovery. A significant part of Dutch waste is still disposed of. As per the EU categorization, other methods are included, such as deep injection—the disposal of liquids underground, for instance—and land treatment—the application of waste to the upper soil surface to degrade it.

The report by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management () presents additional figures. The paper overviews the annual statistics for processed waste by landfills, waste incinerators, and composting facilities. Figures show how the amount of landfilled litter remained the same while soil and dredge treatments decreased. The amount of incinerated waste includes imported garbage.

In a country assessment, the European Environmental Agency (EEA) also stressed the high share of incineration. At the same time, it also underlines the high recycling rate (56.8%) and the minimal landfilling rate, which remains stable.

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Trends in Dutch household waste

According to the Dutch Statistics Institute CBS, over 8 billion kilograms of household waste were collected in 2023, a 0.5% increase from the previous year. Despite this surge, household waste per capita is 456 kilograms, slightly lower than in 2022. This is because the population grew faster than the amount of litter produced.

Overall, residual household waste has been dropping in the past decades—in 1993, it totaled 326 kilograms per capita and now amounts to 178 kilograms per person. Part of this figure depends on the municipality's collection policies, which differentiate how residents sort litter. At the same time, adopting better habits also played an important role.

What does the EU plan to do?

With the EU aiming for more ambitious circularity targets– which consequently need to be adopted by its member states– waste management goals are becoming more stringent. In this sense, the EU cornerstone’s law is the Waste Framework Directive (WFD), which sets the basic concepts for waste management and recycling targets. In the past decades, recycling rates across EU countries have soared, as shown in the chart below.

Under the WFD, EU countries are bound to recycle—or prepare for reuse—55% of the municipal waste they produce next year. This quota will rise to 60% by 2030. In June, the European Council, following the Commission and the Parliament's proposals, voted for a revision of the directive. The amendment introduced stricter targets for food waste generation and extended producer responsibility for textile waste.

Parallel to the WFD, more targets are set expressly through the Packaging Waste Directive (PWD). Specifically, the PWD aims to curb this waste stream production and promote reuse. The 2030 target prescribes 70% packaging recycling– in 2021, it was over 60%, as shown in the graph above. At the same time, targets for waste reduction have also been set, prescribing member states to tackle plastic waste—banning some packaging, such as those for food and beverage consumed in restaurants by 2030—and offering reuse and refill options. There is plenty to do, and our relationship with waste will change again.