REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on statistics compiled pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 on waste statistics and their quality
Date: 2020-02-14
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU Member State, EU statistics, data collection, environmental statistics, statistical method, waste, waste management

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 14.2.2020  COM(2020) 54 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on statistics compiled pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 on waste statistics and their quality  
 
 
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

on statistics compiled pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 on waste statistics and 
their quality 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

Introduction .................................................................................................................. 2 

Punctuality and timeliness ........................................................................................... 3 

Completeness ............................................................................................................... 4 

Data accuracy ............................................................................................................... 4 

Comparability ............................................................................................................... 6 

Burden on businesses ................................................................................................... 7 

Indicator development .................................................................................................. 7 

Achievements and outlook ........................................................................................... 8 

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1. 

INTRODUCTION 

The aim of Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
25 November 2002 on waste statistics1 (hereinafter the Regulation) is to produce statistics on 
waste. The definition of waste falls under the scope of Directive 2008/98/EC on waste (the 
Waste  Framework  Directive)2.  Article  8(1)  of  the  Regulation  requires  the  Commission  to 
submit a report on the implementation of the Regulation to the European Parliament and the 
Council every 3 years (following the first report, which was to be submitted within 5 years of 
the entry into force of the Regulation). The first report was published in 20083, the second in 
20114, the third in 20145and the fourth in 20166.  

This  report  refers  to  the  quality  of  the  data  collection,  which  took  place  in  2018,  with 
reference  to  the  waste  produced  and  treated  in  2016.  The  data  collection  required  by  the 
Regulation  consists  of  three  parts:  waste  generation,  waste  treatment,  and  waste-treatment 
plants, the latter disaggregated to NUTS II level. 

Different national approaches and quality 

The Regulation sets out which statistical data are to be submitted and the quality required of 
this data. However, the Regulation leaves to the Member States the choice over the specific 
method  for  drawing  up  waste  statistics.  This  enables  them  to  keep  their  data  collection 
systems  and  minimise  the  burden  of  complying  with  the  Regulation.  Data  are  collected 
biennially in even years. 

The Regulation (Annex I, Section 7) also requires Member States to submit a quality report 
along with the data. In these reports, Member States refer to quality elements commonly used 
in  the  European  Statistical  System7  and  set  out  in  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No 
1445/2005 on the quality of waste statistics8. 

Quality control 

Since the first data collection in 2004 the Commission (Eurostat) set up an efficient two-step 
quality-control system to check the data they receive from the Member States. 

In  a  first  step  after  the  data  have  been  delivered  to  the  Commission,  the  Commission 
performs  a  quick  evaluation  of  the  data  and  quality  reports  within  2  months  after  the 
reporting deadline.  In this  step, data validation  focuses mainly  on the internal  coherence of 
new data and developments over time. The analysis is performed at a highly aggregated level 
and aims to detect major breaks in series and to validate that the data are fit for publication. 
The  Commission  (Eurostat)  then  sends  an  evaluation  report  to  the  Member  State  that 

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4 
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7 
8 

OJ L 332, 9.12.2002, p. 1. 
OJ L 312, 22.11.2008, p. 3. 
COM(2008) 355 final, 13.6.2008. 
COM(2011) 131 final, 17.3.2011. 
COM(2014) 79 final, 14.2.2014. 
COM(2016) 701 final, 3.11.2016. 
Eurostat website on Quality Reporting: https:/ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/quality-reporting. 
OJ L 229, 6.9.2005, p. 6. 

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submitted the data. This evaluation report may request an explanation and/or a revision of the 
data if necessary. 

The second step is an in-depth validation. This involves analysing the data at a more detailed 
level  (e.g.  by  economic  sector  and  by  waste  category)  and  comparing  patterns  and 
developments across countries. The validation checks include: 

 

 

 

 

intra-country  comparisons  of  waste  generation  for  each  economic  activity  with 
values from previous years; 

comparisons of the data for each economic activity across countries; 

an  intra-country  comparison  of  waste  generated  and  waste  treated  for  each  waste 
category; 

cross-checks  with  waste  data  from  other  reporting  obligations,  such  as  compliance 
monitoring under other waste-related legislation. 

The results are checked against: (i) the countries’ quality reports; (ii) the feedback from the 
first  evaluation  step;  and  (iii)  any  other  available  documents  (e.g.  reporting  documentation 
from previous  years). The results are then discussed with countries. The purpose of this in-
depth validation is not only to detect inconsistencies, but also to improve the quality of the 
data in the long run. 

The  Commission  (Eurostat)  continues  to  update  the  methodological  guidance  documents 
available on Eurostat’s website, and continues to improve and refine the data quality-control 
system. 

2. 

PUNCTUALITY AND TIMELINESS 

Data and quality reports are to be submitted biennially to the Commission (Eurostat) within 
18 months of the end of the reference year9.  

Compliance  with  the  reporting  deadline  for  the  reference  year  2016  has  not  changed 
compared  to  previous  years.  In  total,  23  Member  States  and  2  EFTA  countries  delivered 
complete datasets and quality reports on time. Two Member States sent part of their data with 
a delay of less than 1 month. Five Member States and 1 EFTA country submitted both data 
and  quality  reports  more  than  1  month  after  the  deadline.  Two  Member  States  submitted 
datasets more than 9 months after the deadline. 

The  Commission  (Eurostat)  is  taking  steps  to  urge  countries  to  review  their  statistical 
production processes and deliver good-quality data within the set deadlines. 

Publication 

The Commission (Eurostat) completed the publication of the data on waste generation for the 
reference  year  2016  on  14  September  2018  in  the  Eurostat  dissemination  database.  It  also 

9 

Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002, Section 7(2) of Annexes I and II. 

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completed  the  publication  of  the  data  on  waste  treatment  on  18  September  2018  in  the 
Eurostat dissemination database.10 

3. 

COMPLETENESS 

The  delivery  of  complete  national  datasets  is  crucial  for  the  production  of  EU  aggregates. 
Missing  data  undermine  the  informative  value  of  waste  statistics.  Data  are  incomplete 
whenever countries have either no data sources or insufficient data for estimates. 

Both  the  number  of  missing  values  and  the  number  of  countries  reporting  missing  values 
decreased  considerably  for  waste-generation  data  collections  between  reference  years  2010 
and 2016. In 2010, 8 countries reported missing values, but this dropped to 3 countries in the 
reference year 2016. The total number of missing values fell from 1,668 in the reference year 
2010  to  97  in  the  reference  year  2016.  Most  of  the  missing  values  concerned  waste  from 
households. 

The trend is  the same for the waste-treatment  data. There were no missing  waste-treatment 
values  reported  in  2016,  an  improvement  compared  to  263  missing  values  in  the  reference 
year 2010. 

4. 

DATA ACCURACY 

Data coverage 

Statistics on waste generation must be compiled for all economic sectors and for households. 
These  statistics  must  include  waste  arising  from  recovery  and  disposal  operations,  also 
known as secondary waste. The statistics must also cover waste from small businesses (fewer 
than 10 employees), although such small businesses should be exempt from surveys wherever 
possible. 

Statistics on waste treatment cover all waste that is recovered or disposed of within a country, 
irrespective of the origin of the waste. The underlying goal of the Regulation is to collect data 
on  the  final  destination  of  waste.  The  Regulation  does  not  require  data  to  be  collected  on 
preparatory  treatment  operations.  However,  for  some  treatment  categories,  some  countries 
have  reported  pre-treatment  data  (such  as  sorting  or  storage)  as  final  treatment.  The 
Commission (Eurostat) asked these countries to correct their data. Generally, the coverage of 
data collection for waste statistics improved for reference year 2016 compared to 2014. The 
number of missing values decreased, the share of waste that had to be estimated decreased, 
and additional sources were used. Compared to reference year 2014, coverage improvements 
could be detected in eight countries for reference year 2016. Two important findings of the 
validation of 2016 statistics are the following: 

 

Some countries are not yet able to report on the treatment category ‘backfilling’ or 
use the backfilling category to report landfilling. This problem was detected during 

10 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/data/database 

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validation.  The  Commission  (Eurostat)  asked  the  concerned  countries  to  improve 
this situation in order to report fully correct data sets. 

 

Mineral  waste  is  of  relatively  limited  relevance,  but  accounts  for  a  large  share  of 
total  waste.  For  this  reason,  the  Commission  (Eurostat)  developed  an  additional 
indicator ‘Waste excluding major mineral waste’. 

Breakdown by economic sectors 

The overall impact of wrong allocation by economic sector is considered low. Unlikely cases 
are usually detected during validation and thus would be explained or corrected. Such cases 
do not occur very often. 

Categories of waste 

The Regulation sets out that the categories of waste for reporting to the EU must follow the 
European  Waste  Classification  for  Statistics11  (EWC-Stat).  EWC-Stat  does  not  stipulate  a 
specific classification to be used for national data collection. 

Most countries collect their data according to the European list of waste12, which comprises 
839 waste types. Commission Regulation (EU) 849/201013 contains a transformation table for 
transforming  the  European  list  of  waste  codes  to  EWC-Stat  codes.  The  widespread  use  of 
these two classifications ensures a high level of comparability, at least at the aggregated level 
that  is  requested  in  the  Regulation.  Eurostat  considers  the  overall  impact  of  classification 
errors on data accuracy to be small. Where classification errors result in major impacts they 
are  already  detected  during  the  first  quick  validation  and  corrected  immediately  by  the 
concerned Member State. One such error occurred in 2014, and in 2016 no such errors were 
observed. 

Differences between waste generation and waste treatment 

There  are  several  differences  between  statistics  for  waste  treatment  and  statistics  for  waste 
generation. 

The amount of waste generated has differed from the amount of waste treated in the EU by 
around 200 million tonnes since 2008. This equals approximately 10% of all generated waste. 
The pattern has been stable since 2008: more waste is generated than treated. The difference 
is highest for sludge and liquid waste from waste treatment (approximately 70%) and lowest 
(nearly 0%) for soil. 

Several  reasons  explain  the  difference  between  waste  generated  and  waste  treated.  These 
differences are set out in the bullet points below. 

11 

12 

13 

Current version EWC-Stat Rev. 4, which has 51 categories, laid down by Commission Regulation (EU) 
849/2010. 
Laid  down  by  Commission  Decision  2000/532/EC,  last  amended  by  Commission  Decision 
2014/955/EU.  The  European  Waste  Classification  for  Statistics  (EWC-Stat)  is  purely  classified  by 
waste material. The European list of waste is much more disaggregated than the EWC-Stat and is based 
on material, use of the material, and origin of waste. 
OJ L 253, 28.9.2010, pp. 2–41. 

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 

 

 

 

 

 

Not all waste is treated in the country where it is generated. Import and export data 
are  not  collected  under  the  Regulation,  so  differences  arising  from  imports  and 
exports  cannot  be  quantified  based  on  the  Regulation  data.  Estimates  based  on 
external trade data show that this effect explains about one fifth of the difference for 
the whole EU. For individual countries this effect may be higher. 

The water content of waste also plays a role. All waste categories except sludge are 
reported  in  normal  wet  weight.  During  the  pre-treatment  process,  such  as  the 
preparatory treatment operations for disposal (treatment of liquid waste, e.g. leachate 
or emulsion of oil/water), water weight is lost and waste enters final treatment with a 
significant weight reduction. 

Some operations are excluded from the scope of Annex II of the Regulation, such as 
co-incineration plants that use only particular biomass waste as fuel. 

Not all waste is treated in the same year it is generated. Some waste is temporarily 
stored. Thus waste treated in year t may contain waste generated in year t-1. Waste 
generated in year t may be treated in year t+1. 

Waste treatment may create new types of waste and thus add to the waste generated, 
e.g. ash from waste incineration may also be waste. In order to make a quantitative 
assessment  of  this  effect,  the  Commission  (Eurostat)  estimates  the  indicator 
‘secondary waste’, which aggregates waste that is produced by waste treatment. 

Discarded  vehicles  or  equipment  are  reported  as  such  only  under  waste-generation 
statistics.  Waste  treatment  is  measured  at  the  end  of  the  treatment  chain,  i.e.  after 
discarding  and  sorting.  A  vehicle  consists  of  different  materials,  e.g.  metal  and 
plastic. These materials are reported finally under waste-treatment statistics. Hence, 
only in exceptional cases are vehicles and similar equipment reported under waste-
treatment statistics. 

Therefore, the difference between waste  generation and waste treatment  is not  the result of 
the statistics for these two categories being of different quality. Instead, it reflects differences 
in  the  purpose  of  —  and  in  the  concepts  used  for  —  these  two  categories.  However, 
depending on the waste class the difference should be within certain limits. If these limits are 
exceeded, the respective Member State is asked for explanations. 

5. 

COMPARABILITY 

Comparability over time 

Quality reports submitted by countries are a useful tool  to  monitor methodological  changes 
and their impact on data comparability. These quality reports show that nearly all countries 
have made  considerable  improvements to  their approaches to  national waste statistics since 
2004. Most countries continue to improve: (i) data quality through their data collection (e.g. 
closing data gaps and improving coverage); and (ii) the efficiency of their methods. 

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Improved data collection over the years has created breaks in the time series. Countries revise 
the  datasets  for  previous  years  to  limit  these  breaks,  and  users  are  informed  about  these 
revisions.  The  Commission  (Eurostat)  flags  the  discontinuity  of  the  time  series  in  the 
disseminated datasets. 

Comparability across countries 

Due to common definitions and classifications, the comparability of data across countries is 
fairly  high  for  most  sectors  and  waste  types.  However,  some  problems  in  comparing  data 
across countries still arise due to the differences in coverage described in Section 4. In order 
to increase comparability, the aggregate ‘waste without major mineral waste’ is published. 

6. 

BURDEN ON BUSINESSES 

In  their  quality  reports,  countries  show  a  commitment  to  keep  the  reporting  burden  on 
businesses as low as possible. This is reflected in the increasing number of countries which: 
(i) collect information on the reporting burden; and (ii) are able to quantify the average time 
respondents need to complete questionnaires or reporting forms. The information is gathered 
from  respondents  via  questionnaires  or  determined  by  specific  studies.  Around  half  of  the 
Member  States  use  administrative  data  as  their  main  source  for  waste  statistics,  and  thus 
avoid  burdening  the  data  providers  with  additional  questionnaires.  Other  countries  use 
administrative  data  as  one  among  many  data  sources.  Small  companies  are  exempt  from 
surveys in different ways14. 

A  growing  number  of  countries  have  implemented  —  or  plan  to  implement  —  electronic 
reporting  systems.  These  systems  forward  the  data  required  under  waste  legislation 
automatically from waste-treatment facilities to the national statistical authorities. 

7. 

INDICATOR DEVELOPMENT 

Data  produced  are  used  to  calculate  indicators.  For  instance,  the  EU’s  sustainable 
development  indicators  on  ‘generation  of  waste  excluding  major  mineral  wastes’15  and  on 
‘Recycling  rate  of  waste  excluding  major  mineral  wastes’16  are  available  on  the  Eurostat 
website. These indicators are reported in both kilogram per inhabitant and as a percentage of 
waste treated across countries. The indicator ‘management of waste excluding major mineral 
wastes’  shows  the  final  treatment  of  nationally  generated  waste17.  In  contrast  to  the  data 

14 

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16 
17 

The  exemption  of  small  companies  from  surveys  is  handled  in  different  ways.  Some  countries  cover 
small companies by sample surveys and extrapolate the results. However, most countries exclude small 
companies completely. If the exclusion is consistent with the coverage and quality objectives of Article 
3  of  the  Regulation  the  figures  may  be  ignored.  Alternatively,  the  figures  may  be  extrapolated  by 
factor-based  estimation  models.  Countries  have  set  different  exclusion  thresholds,  determined  mostly 
by the number of employees or by the amount of waste generated per year. Some countries combine 
the  two  criteria  to  make  sure  that  even  small  companies  are  covered  by  data  collection  when  they 
exceed the defined waste generation threshold. 
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_12_50/default/table?lang=en 
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_12_60/default/table?lang=en 
The indicator covers all waste except ‘major mineral wastes’. It provides a consistent set of indicators 
covering all waste treatment categories of Annex II, Section 8, of the Regulation. The indicator set is 
based on the waste treatment data of the Regulation reflecting the amounts of waste that are managed 

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collected  under  the  Regulation,  this  indicator  includes  exported  waste  whereas  it  excludes 
imported waste. 

In December 2018, the circular economy package18 was adopted. To monitor the progress in 
Europe’s transition towards a circular economy, Eurostat provides easy access to the relevant 
data  for  policy  makers  and  the  public  in  the  form  of  10  indicators19.  The  indicators  waste 
generation,  food  waste,  recycling  rate,  specific  waste  streams  and  contribution  of  recycled 
materials to raw materials demand are produced with data collected under the Regulation, or 
are retrieved directly from these data. 

8. 

ACHIEVEMENTS AND OUTLOOK 

Significant progress has been made in compiling waste statistics since the last report in 2016. 
The completeness of data delivery by countries has steadily improved. Waste statistics have 
reached a fairly high degree of comparability across countries for most waste categories and 
sectors,  and  considerable  progress  is  being  made  towards  achieving  full  data  coverage. 
Overall,  the  data  are  of  appropriate  quality  for  most  countries.  The  legislation  on  waste20 
revised under the circular economy package contains more precise rules on the measurement 
of  waste-treatment  operations  and  more  precise  definitions.  This  will  also  improve  the 
comparability  of  waste  statistics  across  countries.  The  Commission  continues  to  work  with 
Member States through other measures, for example through seminars and exchanges of best 
practices. A statistical investigation of major mineral waste would require additional efforts. 

After the 2016 data collection, data on waste generation and treatment are now available for 7 
reference years, i.e. for the period from 2004 to 2016. With the lengthening of the time series, 
the data are becoming increasingly useful, for example for developing indicators or as input 
for climate-related analyses. 

in  Member  States.  In  addition,  foreign  trade  statistics  (COMEXT)  data  or  national  data  on  waste 
imports/exports  are  used  to  include  the  amounts  of  exported  waste  and  to  exclude  the  amounts  of 
imported waste from the calculation. 
https://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/index_en.htm 
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/circular-economy/indicators 
https://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/target_review.htm 

18 
19 
20 

8