Environmental Review No. 6 2007 – Waste Statistics 2005

Waste Statistics 2005

Summary and conclusions

The 2005 reporting to the ISAG comprises 383 plants owned by 248 enterprises. In 2004, reports covered 394 plants owned by 256 enterprises. ^[2]

Waste generation in 2005 is compared to targets for 2008 in the government's Waste Strategy 2005-2008.

The following summarises waste generation in 2005:

In 2005, total reported waste arisings amounted to 14,210,000 tonnes, which is 851,000 tonnes, or 6 per cent, more than in 2004.
If amounts of residues from coal-fired power plants are excluded from statistics, waste arisings in 2005 were 13,129,000 tonnes, which is an 8 per cent increase on 2004.
If amounts of residues from coal-fired power plants and waste from the building and construction sector are excluded from statistics, total waste generation in 2005 amounted to 7,859,000 tonnes, which is 175,000 tonnes, or 2 per cent, more than in 2004. In other words, there has been an increase in total waste arisings, if residues and waste from building and construction are excluded. Waste from the building and construction sector is more sensitive to economic change than most other waste.
The total rate of recycling was 67 per cent. The 2008 target for recycling is 65 per cent. In 2004 the total rate of recycling was 65 per cent.
The total amount of waste led to incineration amounted to 24 per cent, plus an additional approx. 1 per cent left in temporary storage to be incinerated at a later time. The 2008 target for incineration is 26 per cent. The amount of waste which is incinerated has dropped by 2 per cent since 2004, while the amount in storage has remained almost unchanged.
The total amount of waste led to landfills amounted to 7 per cent, which is two percentage points better than the overall landfill target of a maximum of 9 per cent landfilling in 2008. In 2004, 8 per cent was landfilled.
The targets for treatment of waste from some of the individual sectors are still not being met: too little waste from the service sector is being recycled, and too much waste from industry is being led to landfills. However, the trend is going in the right direction.

[2] Primarily, the fall in the number of plants/enterprises is due either to discontinuation or they have merged with other ISAG-reporting plants.