Municipal waste per person in the EU
Topic: Energy and environment
Per person, Austria generated 2.1 times as much municipal waste as Estonia.
In 2024, municipal waste in the EU came to 513 kg per person. Most of it comes from households, the rest from similar sources such as shops, offices and public institutions.
- Figures for:
- 2024.
- Covers:
- the whole year.
- New data:
- once a year.
- Dataset updated:
- 15 October 2026.
Published 4 November 2026, updated 6 November 2026
The ranking
In 2024, the amount of municipal waste generated per person was highest in Austria, at 775 kg per person, and lowest in Estonia, at 375 kg per person.
Romania has no value for this period.
Amount of municipal waste generated per person, kg per person
2024Recycled, incinerated or landfilled
In 2024, the municipal waste recycled in the EU came to 253 kg per person, the waste incinerated to 135 kg per person and the waste landfilled to 106 kg per person.
Municipal waste recycled, incinerated and landfilled, kg per person
2024About the data
The amount of municipal waste generated in a year, mostly by households and partly by similar sources such as shops, offices and public institutions, in kilograms per inhabitant.
Eurostat: “Municipal waste is mainly produced by households, similar wastes from sources such as commerce, offices and public institutions are included.” (source)
Reported by the national statistical institutes or environment authorities through the Eurostat/OECD Joint Questionnaire. Their sources are surveys, administrative records of municipalities, waste collectors and treatment facilities, and estimates.
How to read these numbers
How it is measured
Countries differ in how much waste from shops, offices and other businesses they collect and count together with household waste. Part of the difference between countries comes from this, not from what households throw away.
For some countries the amounts recycled, incinerated and landfilled do not add up exactly to the waste generated. The reasons include estimates for people not covered by waste collection, weight lost as waste dries, waste counted at more than one treatment step, exports and imports of waste, and waste stored before treatment.
Values imputed by Eurostat
Romania has no value for 2024. The EU figure for 2024 is imputed by Eurostat (flag i), with Romania's missing data estimated from the year before.
An imputed value (flag i) was filled in by Eurostat or another receiving agency. This concerns Germany (2024) and the EU (2024).
Provisional figures
A provisional value (flag p) may still be revised. This concerns Cyprus (2024).
Estimates
A value with flag e is an estimate, not measured or counted in full. This concerns Spain (2024) and Sweden (2024).
Sources and data
Eurostat, Municipal waste by waste management operations (env_wasmun). Data updated 15 October 2026, retrieved 4 November 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.
Eurostat metadata · Eurostat methodology
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/env_wasmun?format=JSON&lang=en&freq=A&geo=AT&geo=BE&geo=BG&geo=CY&geo=CZ&geo=DE&geo=DK&geo=EE&geo=EL&geo=ES&geo=EU27_2020&geo=FI&geo=FR&geo=HR&geo=HU&geo=IE&geo=IT&geo=LT&geo=LU&geo=LV&geo=MT&geo=NL&geo=PL&geo=PT&geo=RO&geo=SE&geo=SI&geo=SK&unit=KG_HAB&wst_oper=GENRelated stories
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