Municipal waste (i62)
- 29/11/2024
- objective
- assessment
In 2020, 416 kilograms of municipal waste per capita were collected in Belgium (households only). To achieve the sustainable development goal by 2030, this figure must decrease. Between 2000 and 2020, the trend is favourable (assessment of November 2024).
Municipal waste - Belgium and international comparison
kilograms per capita
| 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2020//1995 | 2020//2015 | 2022//2020 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belgium | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 729.0 | 755.0 | 677.0 | -- | -- | -3.6 |
| Belgium (only households) | 455.0 | 471.0 | 482.0 | 456.0 | 412.0 | 416.0 | -- | -- | -0.4 | 0.2 | -- |
| EU27 (only households) | 467.0 | 513.0 | 506.0 | 503.0 | 480.0 | 519.0 | 532.0 | 513.0 | 0.4 | 1.6 | -0.6 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | |||||||||||
Statbel; Eurostat (2024), Municipal waste by waste operations [env_wasmun], https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat (consulted on 16/9/2024).
Municipal waste by region - Belgium
kilograms per capita
| 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 2020//1995 | 2020//2015 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brussels-Capital Region (only households) | 503.0 | 543.9 | 549.7 | 397.0 | 286.2 | 284.5 | -2.3 | -0.1 |
| Flemish Region (only households) | 445.1 | 483.6 | 487.0 | 478.9 | 421.3 | 424.8 | -0.2 | 0.2 |
| Walloon Region (only households) | 459.9 | 430.0 | 458.2 | 441.8 | 443.4 | 449.2 | -0.1 | 0.3 |
| //: Average Growth Rates | ||||||||
Statbel (2022), Direct communication, 28/04/2022.
Definition: municipal waste is household waste collected by municipal collection services, container parks, street sweepers, etc., excluding construction materials. From 2020, similar waste from sources such as commerce, offices and public institutions are included in this indicator. This change has been applied from 2020 in Belgium, but has not yet been implemented in all European countries. For this reason, two time series are presented, depending on the definition used. The indicator is expressed in kilograms per capita. Statistics Belgium organises this data collection in Belgium and makes the results available, in particular to Eurostat. The data used here come from Eurostat, which publishes detailed and comparable results between EU Member States.
Goal: municipal waste must decrease.
The Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the UN (SDGs) include target 12.5: “By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.”
International comparison: the amount of municipal waste produced per capita follows a similar trend in Belgium and in the EU27, but the amount produced in Belgium is below the European average. When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with the best performance in 2019. In that year, Romania ranked first with 280 kg/inhabitant and Denmark last with 844 kg/inhabitant.
UN Indicator: the selected indicator is related to indicator 12.5.1 - National recycling rate, tons of material recycled. The total waste per capita indicator is a complement to the recycling indicator.
Sources
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SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: United Nations (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, document A/RES/70/1.
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Indicators: United Nations (2017), Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, document A/RES/71/313.
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UN Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).
- UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators website: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).
At www.indicators.be the Federal Planning Bureau presents sustainable development indicators.
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