How countries are recovering waste

We tend to hear a lot about recycling, but this is only one category of waste recovery. The three core categories are recycling, composting and energy through incineration.

The world leaders in recovered waste are currently Switzerland, recovering 100% of their municipal waste. However, this isn’t as idyllic as you might think. Whilst some of their waste recovery is through recycling and composting (material recovery), their main method is incineration with energy, which is placed lower down on the hierarchy of recoverable methods. This is because while burning waste is reusable, the pollution it creates is toxic for both people and our environment.

In terms of material recovery – which is solely to do with recycling and composting – Germany, Slovenia and Australia are paving the way, recovering an average of 67%, 62% and 58% of waste through these methods over the last five years.

The race to recycle

Germany now recycle almost half (49%) of their waste (having improved year on year), in part because of the success of their recycling program which relies on strong government policies and citizens that embrace it.

One of these initiatives is The Green Dot system. Manufacturers and retailers must pay for a green sticker on products, showing a fee has been paid to fund its recycling. The effect is twofold: manufacturers cut down on packaging, and consumers can recycle it when they’re done¹. In fact, Germany uses several different bins in their households to enhance recycling efficiency – black for general waste, blue for paper, yellow for plastic, white for clear glass, green for coloured glass and brown for composting.

Countries like Slovenia and Slovakia are also going to great lengths to improve their recycling rates – having increased them by 24 and 22 percentage points, respectively, over the past five years.

Composting is coming up the ranks

Composting is a process that submits biodegradable waste to anaerobic or aerobic decomposition, resulting in a product that is recovered. When it comes to composting, Austria are leading the way, recovering over 33% of their waste this way in their most recently available year (2018).

However, one of the more dramatic changes comes from Lithuania, who have increased their composting by 22% over the last five years alone – taking it up to an average of 32%! As a result of tripling their composting efforts, they have reduced their landfill from 60 to 27% over this time. Just one of the ways they are doing this is through regional waste management centers. They provide most private houses with free composting boxes and information for individuals on separating food and kitchen waste. Could the rest of the world take a little inspiration from their success?

Are we leaving the landfill behind?

Landfill is considered the worst form of waste disposal, namely because its toxicity is bad for our health and the environment (not to mention they’re downright ugly!). The good news? 23 of the 29 countries we looked at have had a reduction in their landfilled waste over the course of five years, though ten of these had improved less than 5%.

Turkey has the worst rep for sending waste to landfill, at an average of 93%. Thankfully, this has improved from 99% in 2013, to 88% in 2018 – but still leaves much to be done. Greece follows closely behind with an average of 83%, having only improved by 4% over that course of time. On the flip side, after Lithuania’s impressive landfill reduction, next up are Poland, Finland and Great Britain, with decreases of 17, 17 and 13 percentage points.

It’s worth noting however, that while it is now illegal in UK to send non-recoverable material to other countries – it doesn’t always work that way. Many wealthy countries send recyclable waste overseas because it’s cheap, helps with recycling targets and reduces landfill – and even then, developing countries often find that unrecyclable waste is amongst it, causing their landfill stats to skyrocket while other countries stay relatively low.

But who is producing the most waste?

Ultimately, even better than recovering our waste is to stop producing so much in the first place. The table shows that USA, Germany and Japan are the biggest producers, but that tells us little when their populations differ so greatly.

This is where 'waste per head' comes in. When you factor this in, it becomes clear that some countries are struggling to control their usage more than others. The Netherlands, Denmark and the USA are the top culprits for this. On the other hand, countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Japan are making efforts to produce the least waste.

In fact, Japan has managed to decrease their waste by 4% over the last 5 years, continuing to impress when it comes to the 3Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. ‘Mottainai’ is their motto, which can be translated to “don’t waste anything worthy”. Crucially, only five of the other 29 countries have also succeeded in reducing their waste – Hungary, Belgium, Great Britain, Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland – showing that waste continues to be a mounting concern across most countries.

The shining example - who is minimising waste, while also recovering their waste?

With all of this in mind, any country that wishes to truly be conscious about waste management needs to consider two things. Countries should be both recovering waste properly, as well as making the effort to minimise their production overall. So, which countries rank well on both of these factors – keeping waste per capita low, and recovery rates high?

Our results showed us that Japan came in top, thanks to being the third lowest waste producer and boasting 93% recovery rates. The runners up were Belgium and Sweden. Belgium produces less waste per capita, but has slightly lower recovery rates. Sweden however, produced a relatively low amount of waste in comparison to other countries, and only 1% of this goes to landfills. Almost half of their waste is recycled or composted (46%), while just over half is incinerated for energy. Interestingly, their municipal waste heats homes, powers buses and fuels taxis for the country’s 10 million residents - from its approximately 35 waste-to-energy power plants.²

Every year, we are dumping 2.12 billions of waste globally, and this number is still growing.³ And while many countries are taking serious steps towards positive change, it’s clear that not everyone is coping to adapt at the rate we need to. But by looking to our fellow nations who are not only finding ways to recover waste, but minimise it too, we can all make a difference - from helpful habits at home, to conscious business contributions.