Municipal waste (i63)
- 31/10/2025
- 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 2025).
Municipal waste - Belgium and international comparison
kilograms per capita
| 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2020//1995 | 2020//2015 | 2023//2020 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belgium | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 729.0 | 755.0 | 690.0 | 689.0 | -- | -- | -1.9 |
| 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 | 481.0 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| //: Average Growth Rates | ||||||||||||
Source: Statbel; Eurostat (2025), Municipal waste by waste operations, env_wasmun, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat, last update of data 13/02/2025 23:00 (consulted on 01/07/2025).
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 | ||||||||
Source: Statbel (2025), Direct communication, 16/09/2025.
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.
The following breakdown is available for this indicator: region.
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.”
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.
At www.indicators.be the Federal Planning Bureau presents sustainable development indicators.
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