Environmental Review, 1/2006 – Waste Statistics 2004

Environmental Review, 1/2006

Preface

The ISAG Waste Information System

The ISAG (Informations System for Affald og Genanvendelse - information system for waste and recycling) was used for the first time in 1993. The 2004 report is the twelfth consecutive report.

The ISAG is based on statutory registration and reporting from Danish waste-treatment plants for all waste entering or leaving the plants. Information concerning waste in the previous year must be reported to the Danish Environmental Protection Agency each year, no later than 31 January.

In order to avoid double reporting, it is important to distinguish between waste from direct (primary) sources and waste from plant (secondary) sources. The principle behind registration in the ISAG is shown below.

Click here to see the Figure.

The Danish EPA carries out quality assurance of the information it receives and collects additional information from sector organisations and other sources. Each year the Danish EPA prepares a publication called "Waste Statistics", which gives an overview of waste composition and waste arisings in Denmark.

The publication also calculates the quantities of waste recycled, incinerated, and landfilled relative to the total waste amounts. Information is analysed between commercial sources and waste types.

New methods

Since 2001 data have been reported according to new rules set out in Statutory Order No. 619 of 27 June 2000 on waste (Statutory Order on Waste). These new rules have entailed a number of changes to the ISAG. For example, the source "manufacturing etc." was discontinued, so that since 2001 breakdown of industrial waste has been divided between 11 sectors.

Since 2001 there has been a shift between sectors in that waste volumes from industry have been falling, while waste volumes from the service sector have been rising. Waste volumes from industry thus fell by 37 per cent in the period 2000 to 2004, whereas in the service sector volumes increased by 64 per cent. In the period 2003 to 2004 waste volumes from industry went up by 1 per cent, whereas in the service sector volumes went up by 11 per cent. The shift between the two sectors may be due to faulty reporting as the source "manufacturing etc." was discontinued from 2001 following the amendment of the Statutory Order on Waste ^[1]. This means that waste from industry must be reported as originating from one of the following 11 subgroups: food, beverages and tobacco; textiles, clothing and leather goods; wood-working and furniture; paper and graphical production; chemicals etc.; rubber and plastic; stone-working, pottery and glass; ferrous metal; other manufacturing; utilities; agriculture, forestry, fishery etc. It is likely that some carriers find it easier to report industrial waste as service-sector waste. This should be remembered when reading the statistics. Moreover, parties reporting to the ISAG are encouraged to be very attentive to this risk of incorrect reporting.

Structural changes, i.e. the fact that society is changing from an industrial to a knowledge society, may be another reason for the shift between the two sectors. The shift could be supported e.g. by the fact that from the early 1990s to early 2001, the number of new enterprises in traditional industry has gone down, while the number of new enterprises in the knowledge services industry has increased dramatically ^[2].

Packaging waste is a fairly new waste type in the ISAG and it does not yet reflect the total amount of cardboard and plastic packaging waste collected for recycling in Denmark. Parties reporting to the ISAG are therefore encouraged to be especially aware of this reporting possibility.

The principles for categorising waste from recycling centres/transfer stations with regard to the fractions glass and paper and cardboard have likewise been changed compared to the years 1994 to 2000. See Annex 2 for a more detailed explanation of the principles for this re-categorisation.

From 2001, sludge for mineralisation has been stated with a dry matter content of 20 per cent. This means that sludge which is mineralised is included in the statistics with the same dry matter content as other sludge. In previous years dry matter content for sludge for mineralisation was 1.5 per cent.

Please note that the changes to the way data is reported to the ISAG mentioned above, mean that care should be taken when comparing waste arisings at sector level from 2001 and later with waste arisings from previous years.

The government's Waste Strategy 2005-2008 presents a shift in focus from use of waste arisings as the only indicator for target fulfilment, to the supplementary use of new waste indicators for resource loss and environmental impacts.

Reading guide

Waste Statistics 2004 follows the same structure as previous reports: Chapter 1 describes general trends in waste generation, while Chapter 2 deals with waste recycling.

Chapter 3 deals with generation and treatment of hazardous waste, and Chapter 4 describes developments in imports and exports, both for ordinary waste and waste subject to mandatory notification.

Chapter 5 describes developments in waste arisings and treatment of waste from individual sources. Furthermore, this Chapter assesses the level of achievement of targets for treatment in the Danish government's Waste Strategy 2005-2008.

Chapter 6 presents the latest figures for the number of Danish incineration plants and landfills.

For the first years, tables and figures will show figures for every second year; whereas for the most recent years, there will be figures for each year. This is due to visual scope and to make it possible to present the tables in a format big enough to read.

Regrettably, an error was made in Waste Statistics 2003, where about 222,000 tonnes of sludge was counted twice. This means that overall waste arisings in 2003 totalled 12,614,000 tonnes and not, as stated previously, 12,835,000 tonnes. The tables and figures in Chapters 1 and 5.6 have therefore been corrected and Annex 1 has been changed to accommodate the correct 2003 figure.

Footnotes

[1] Statutory Order no. 619 of 27 June 2000 on waste.

[2] Statistical Ten-Year Review 2003 and 2004. Statistics Denmark.