1. Results from the survey on municipal waste reporting
Volker Küchen,
ARGUS, Berlin
Good morning ladies and gentlemen
I welcome you to the morning session which starts with my presentation on the …(s.o.).
I have worked for Eurostat as a consultant on in the collection and validation of MW data since 2004 (last survey using the JQ for data collection).
Don’t hesitate to interrupt me, should you have a question

2. Background and objectives of the survey
Overview
Background and objectives of the survey
Results from the methodological survey on municipal waste
Overall participation
Secondary waste/residues
Import/Export
Coverage by waste materials and sources
Conclusions

3. Background and objectives
Time series well established, breaks well documented & explained
Comparability across countries still limited
Different coverage for generation: Inclusion of packaging waste and commercial waste varies;
Different approaches for treatment: first / final treatment step; import / export
MW questionnaire
explain differences across countries
increase comparability
provide further guidance (targets of WFD)
Objectives of questionnaire:
Coverage of waste materials and sources
what waste items (EWC Stat)?
what business activities (NACE)?
Exclusion of secondary waste, but what to report?
first / last treatment step?
How do countries allocate amounts of waste pre-treated by sorting or mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) to the four treatment categories landfilling, incineration, recycling and composting?
How do countries handle the issue that residues from existing treatment categories are subject to further treatment (e.g. landfilling of residues from incineration or composting)?
Import and export of municipal waste
subtract from / add to figures or not?

4. Results: Participation
36 countries were contacted (EU-27, 3 EFTA, 3 candidates, 3 potential candidates)
22 countries (18 MS) returned 23 filled questionnaires (2 questionnaires from Belgium: Wallonia & Flanders)
14 countries (9 MS) did not reply
21 questionnaires required clarification (5 of which are still pending) complexity of the questionnaire
Very good coverage by population: participating countries represent 80% of the population (EU-27: 81%)

5. Rationale: Secondary waste/residues
The general reporting approach (first/final treatment) (questions 1.1 & 1.2)
Existing treatment operations & allocation of pre-treatment (question 1.3).
Inputs and outputs of existing treatment operations for MW & their allocation to the four requested treatment categories (question 2).
Comments on flow charts
Initial intention: cover all possible flows
Outcome survey: All flows existed (even composting to recycling or landfill to recycling)

6. Results: Secondary waste/residues
General reporting approach (number of countries)
BE summarised, one country without questionnaire included
Figure shows available information on reporting approach (including one country which did not fill the questionnaire)
Results can be summarised as follows:
most countries apply the approach to report on first treatment
four countries on final treatment while
six reported a combination of the two methods.
MBT Sorting
Final treatment 1 (1) 3 (3)
First treatment 6 (3) 10 (3)
Total 7 (4) 13 (6)
() combination!

7. Results: Secondary waste/residues
Allocation of MBT and sorting to treatment categories
Figure shows how MW treated by MBT or Sorting is allocated for all 22 countries with filled questionnaires (regardless of the way of reporting):
The bars represent the numbers of countries who assigned MBT and sorting in a certain way:
Yellow: not assigned,
Blue: assigned to several cats,
Other colours: assigned to one of the existing categories!
For either pre-treatment, the largest group of countries assigns pre-treatment to several of the existing four treatment categories. (This group, of course, contains the four countries reporting on final treatment.)
About one third of the countries assign the amounts to only one of the other four categories:
for sorting, the assignment is made exclusively to recycling,
for MBT the assignment is made either to composting (1 country) or to incineration (2 countries).
A minority of countries do not assign the amounts pre-treated to any other treatment category, i.e. they can be expected to have a gap in the coverage of municipal waste treatment. (For MBT, however, this group is equal to the largest group mentioned above which assigns amounts for MBTs to several of the existing four treatment categories). (This group contains at least two countries who stated that their data collection does not cover pre-treatment at all.-> underestimation of municipal waste generation and treatment.)

8. Results: Secondary waste/residues
Availability of input and output data on pre-treatment of municipal waste
Initially, it was intended to use the mass flow data for
Calculation of country specific estimates for the shares, as to which the outputs of pre-treated municipal waste are subject to final treatment operations.
Consider the way of reporting (first/final) and assess the effect that a change in reporting would have on the distribution of treated amounts among the existing waste treatment categories.
Figure shows the availability of input and output data (required for such an analysis)
by type of flow (input/output) and
type of pre-treatment
Summary of figure:
Only a minority of countries have quantitative information on the outputs of treatment (and their allocation to the existing four treatment categories).
Reasonable number of input figures is available (ca. 50 %, respectively),
Only 3 countries provided figures on the output of MBTs and
6 countries on the output of sorting
Unfortunately
Rarely inputs and outputs available
Outputs of incomplete coverage
detailed quantitative analysis only possible with significant research on the basis of national data

9. Results: Secondary waste/residues - effects
Results from flow charts for Sorting:
Sorting residues (landfilled or incinerated) range from 5 to 35 % of output
Amounts of MW recycled mostly consist of the sum of
amounts directly recycled
amounts recycled after sorting
Effects on comparability:
First treatment: Overestimation of recycling
Highest effect in countries with large share of waste recycled with prior sorting
No effect in countries without sorting, but only direct recycling (2 countries)
Share of waste recycled after sorting ranges from zero to 100 %
Shares often unknown -> data transmitted in aggregated way by data providers

10. Results: Secondary waste/residues - effects
Results from flow charts (and literature data) for MBT:
Largest share of outputs incinerated (25 to 50 %)
Second largest share landfilled (20 to 45 %)
Varying share of outputs for material recovery (2 to 25 %)
Low Recycling: mostly metals (up to 3 %)
Use as compost in agriculture (up to 20 %) (in some countries not permitted)
Significant and stable shares of losses (20 to 30 %)
Literature research required, as only two countries provided useful outputs for MBTs.
FOLIE
Next slide shows an example on the flows in and out of MBTs from a research project in Germany.

11. Results: Secondary waste/residues - example
Losses ca. 24 %
Recycling ca. 3 %
Incineration ca. 48 %
Landfill ca. 22 %
Example: “Residual waste” treatment by MBT in Germany,
refers to household and similar waste but also other waste types (total input to MBTs: 7.24 Million tons)
Main observations
Incineration makes up largest share of outputs (48 %), including contraries and other minor fractions)
Followed by landfill (22 %)
Furthermore:
significant losses (24 %)
minor recycling (3 %), mostly metals
Minor low calorific fraction (3 %) subject to various treatment types
Main problems mentioned by the countries
Municipal waste is mixed up with other waste streams during pre-treatment (relation of output to input difficult)
2. Pre-treatment changes the waste type (residues not classified as municipal waste, but as secondary waste chapter 19 LoW; will not turn up in the statistics on MW).
Next slide shows the effects on comparability.
Various ca. 3 %

12. Results: Secondary waste/residues - effects
MBT: effects on comparability:
Effects:
It needs to be considered that only two countries reported MBT as final treatment (i.e. allocation of outputs to their destination), one of which with overall insignificant amounts destined for MBT

13. Results: Import/Export
Information the countries provided with regard to import/export (N=17)
Figure shows for each of the 4 treatment categories:
Whether the reported figures include (YELLOW) or not include (BLUE) imports or exports
Whether the included/excluded amounts are available (shaded parts of the columns)
countries gave little quantitative information on imports and exports
mostly an indication of inclusion/exclusion possible
Amounts mostly not available
For all treatments except recycling, most countries report- values that do not include imports or exports.
For recycling, most countries include exports and exclude imports -> in line with the recommendations (aiming at a reporting that reflects the way the waste generated and collected in the country is recycled).
There is a need for corrections in some countries, particularly when the exclusion of exports or the inclusion of large shares of imports bias the rates for recycling
SHOWN ON NEXT SLIDE

14. Results: Import/Export - effects
Recycling rates for countries which did not follow the recommendations*
*include exports, exclude imports
Recycling rates with high shares of included exports
Upper half: ABLESEN
Lower half: ABLESEN
Comparison: rates based on reported figures to rates based on calculated figures (italics)
Conclusions
Rates based on recommendations are by factor two lower or higher than those currently reported
The recommendation regarding the inclusion of exports is justified
as in three cases the recycling rate would otherwise decrease to almost zero.

15. Results: Coverage by waste materials & sources
No. of countries were cell is included/partly included in MW (N=16)
The table shows the reporting table on waste generation from WStatR by
Waste categories (ROWS)
Economic activities (COLUMNS)
The numbers represent the number of countries that marked the respective cell as included OR partly incl.
The larger this number the darker the shading
In addition the right column shows: the quantitative importance of the marked cells in column 20 (households)
Numbers represent the reported amounts of the EU 27 as percentages of the total amounts of column (average of the years 2004, 2006 and 2008 from the WStatR)
Summary of results:
clear focus on the column “households” and less so on “services”.
”Household and similar waste”
EWC-STAT 10.1 (household and similar waste) from households fully included in all countries’ municipal waste figures.
from the other sectors than households included in the MW data by almost half of the countries.
makes up by far the largest share of waste generated by households at EU 27 level (68%).
Reason: contains important quantities and waste types (Annex 3 of the WStatR: mixed municipal waste).
Other significant waste categories
typical recyclables (metals, glass, paper and plastic), organic waste (animal and vegetal waste), followed by wood and textiles.
Similarly: the level of inclusion is lower in the “services” sector.
Categories make up a share of 25 % of the waste generated by households in the EU 27.
The overall pattern confirms the conversion factors proposed for the calculation of WStatR data to the old formats of the Joint Questionnaire used for reporting to OECD
An interesting detail is the fact that several hazardous waste types (mainly chemical wastes) are also marked by around half of the countries. (in line with the Joint Questionnaire AND Annex 3 WStatR - contains LoW keys belonging to chapter 20).
most countries also include “discarded equipment” and “batteries and accumulators” in municipal waste (organisation of municipal waste collection systems)
Large variations>
4 countries marked cells only in the columns “households” and “services”, three countries exclusively in “households”,
others included all economic activities. The following descriptions illustrate the greatest difference observed:
Caution it cannot be concluded that only waste from households is covered when cells from other origins were not marked
Countries where only waste categories from households are included in municipal waste, often waste from commerce and industry included in waste from households (cannot be distinguished on because of the municipal waste collection system)

16. Results: Coverage by waste materials & sources
Recycling rates for 3 countries which did not include packaging in MW
Similar table as shown before for the effects of imports/exports for recycling
This time: Comparison
Reported figure on M;W recycled
Calculated figure including “total packaging recycled” (based on data on Packaging directive)

17. Conclusions and outlook
Lack of knowledge on outputs of pre-treatment
Majority of countries report on first treatment
Considerations:
Pre-treatment
New variable for MBT
Sorting reported as recycling (mostly done already), additional information on sorting residues required (recycling rate for WFD)
Import / Export
No changes in recommendation on import / export for recycling
Exclude imports
Include exports
Coverage:
No recommendations on coverage except for the inclusion of packaging

19. screenshots of questionnaire sheets
Annex
screenshots of questionnaire sheets

20. Secondary waste/ residues

21. Import/Export

22. Coverage by waste materials & sources