Easy waste clearance and recycling service. In-home, licenced two person service. Licensed on demand waste clearance service. Almost all waste types cleared. Book online.
- Contact Us
Need a rubbish removal?-Contact
Clearabee® today.
- Waste Calculator
Calculate how much rubbish you
have-with Clearabee®.
- Try our Waste Calculator?
Add your items and get a price.
We help estimate your load size.
- Domestic & Business Waste
Most waste types removed same day.
Range of services waste available.
- Contact Us
Search results
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public.
Municipal solid waste (MSW) is waste collected by local municipalities. The main part of municipal solid waste comes from households, but waste from commerce and trade, offices and institutions are also included in municipal solid waste.
- 1. Key points
- 2. Data revisions in this update
- 3. Impact of coronavirus (COVID-19)
- 4. Waste from households (WfH)
- 5. Biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) sent to landfill
- 6. Packaging waste
- 7. Recovery rate from non-hazardous construction and demolition (C&D) waste
- 8. Waste from commercial and industrial (C&I) activities
- 9. Total Waste Generation and Final Treatment of All Waste
•The UK recycling rate for Waste from Households (WfH); including Incinerator Bottom Ash metal (IBAm) was 44.6% in 2021, increasing from 44.4% in 2020.
•The recycling rate for WfH increased in all UK countries in 2021 except Northern Ireland. The recycling rate for England was 44.1%, 48.4% in Northern Ireland, 41.7% in Scotland, and 56.7% in Wales.
•UK biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) sent to landfill increased to 6.8 million tonnes in 2021 from 6.1 million tonnes in 2020.
•Figures for 2021 show that 63.2% of UK packaging waste was recycled, similar to 2020 (63.1%).
•It is estimated that the UK generated 40.4 million tonnes of commercial and industrial (C&I) waste in 2020, of which 33.8 million tonnes (84%) was generated in England. The latest estimates for England only, indicate that C&I waste generation was around 33.9 million tonnes in 2021.
•The UK generated 222.2 million tonnes of total waste in 2018, with England responsible for 84% (187.3 million tonnes) of the UK total.
This release contains several data updates:
•Minor revisions were made to the Scotland 2016 and 2020 biodegradable municipal waste to landfill figures, due to routine revision of site returns provided by operators and revised estimations of the amount of EWC coded 19 12 12 waste that is of municipal origin.
•Revisions have been made to the construction and demolition (C&D) figures for the UK for 2011 to 2018, due to revised figures from Scotland. Scotland have revised their methodology for calculation of the C&D recovery rates.
•Minor revisions have been made to the commercial and industrial (C&I) figures for England for 2019 and 2020 to correct a rounding error.
The reporting period for some of these statistics coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic and the national lockdowns.
Updated, with new figures for 2021
WfH is the agreed harmonised UK measure used to report household recycling. The UK currently defines ‘household waste’ using the WfH measure.
Updated UK figures for 2021 are available as summarised in Table 1. The recycling figures all include metal recovered and recycled after incineration (incinerator bottom ash metal; IBAm). This methodological change was introduced in the February 2018 release for 2016 data. At an overall UK level this change in methodology raised the recycling rate for 2021 by around 0.9 percentage points (equivalent to 243 thousand tonnes; see dataset). For more details on this change refer to the methodology section.
Table 1: Waste from Households, UK and country split, 2015–2021 (thousand tonnes and % rate)
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra Statistics
Notes - Table 1
Updated, with new figures for 2021
UK estimates for biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) to landfill have been calculated using a UK wide approach in accordance with relevant legislation. Biodegradable municipal waste is the fraction of municipal waste that will decompose. Amongst other materials it will include food waste, green waste, cardboard and paper.
The UK countries have agreed a set of European Waste Catalogue (EWC) classification codes to represent ‘municipal waste’. Countries use broadly similar, but non-identical sets of factors, for the proportion of each EWC code that is biodegradable, based upon composition studies of landfill waste. See methodology section for more details.
Figure 2: Biodegradable municipal waste to landfill UK and country split, 2010–2021
Source: Waste Data Interrogator, Defra Statistics
Notes - Figure 2
Updated with final figures for 2021
The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations set material specific recycling targets and require businesses obligated under the regulations to ensure the recycling of a proportion of the packaging they generate and place on the market. UK recovery/recycling rates for packaging materials for 2021 are calculated based on the amount of packaging reported as being recycled under the regulations in each year and the total amount of packaging materials estimated to be placed on the UK market in each year.
Table 4: Packaging waste and recycling, split by material, UK 2021 (thousand tonnes and % rate)
Source: Defra Statistics
Notes - Table 4
* ‘Other’ includes materials such as cloth, corks, gel, glue, hessian sacks and wax used as packaging.
Updated, with new UK figures for 2019 and 2020. Revisions to UK figures for 2011 to 2018.
UK estimates of recovery rates from non-hazardous C&D waste have been calculated for 2019 and 2020. Accurately quantifying C&D waste is challenging and whilst the absolute tonnage figures are subject to a relatively high level of uncertainty, there is not a significant impact on the final recovery rate.
Table 5 and 6 show the amount of non-hazardous construction and demolition waste generated and recovered for both the UK and England.
Table 5: Recovery rate from non-hazardous construction and demolition waste, UK, 2010–2020 (million tonnes and % rate)
Source: Defra Statistics
Notes - Table 5
Updated, with new UK figures for 2020 and England figures for 2021
Defra has worked closely with industry experts to improve the C&I methodology for England (for details see Commercial and Industrial waste arisings methodology revisions for England). Nonetheless, C&I waste generation remains extremely difficult to estimate owing to data limitations and data gaps. As a result, C&I estimates for England have a much higher level of uncertainty than Waste from Households (or other Local Authority Collected Waste) and users should exercise caution in application of the figures and interpreting trends over time.
The methodology relies largely on known tonnages of waste processed at permitted sites and recycling facilities. It makes no attempt to estimate waste that may be processed at exempt sites that is not captured in the available recycling data. UK and England estimates for waste generation by the C&I sectors have been calculated as part of the Waste Statistics Regulation[footnote 1] returns for 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018. The term ‘commercial and industrial’ spans a range of economic activities including manufacturing, industrial processes and service-based enterprises, but excluding sewage sludge.
Estimates presented below are “as received” tonnages and do not include an additional adjustment from wet weight to dry weight for sludges.
Tables 7 and 8 show the amount of commercial and industrial waste generated in the UK and England.
Table 7: Total waste generated by the commercial and industrial sectors, UK, 2010–2020 (million tonnes)
Not updated
These statistics will not be produced this year whilst we undertake a review of their value to users. We are proposing permanently stopping production of estimates for certain elements of total waste generated and treated which includes agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, dredging spoils, offshore and sewage wastes. We are seeking feedback on how these statistics are used and how these proposals would impact you. Please could you email your feedback to WasteStatistics@defra.gov.uk with the subject heading ‘UK Statistics on Waste consultation’ by the 31st October 2023.
UK and England tonnage estimates for generation and final treatment of all waste were calculated in order to report against the EC Waste Statistics Regulation[footnote 2] return for 2018.
There are some differences between the C&I figures presented here, and those shown in the C&I section of this release (Section 8). For the purposes of the Waste Statistics Regulation return (WStatR), for which the total waste figures have previously been compiled, sewage sludge is included in the C&I estimates. The WStatR returns required that figures for sludges are converted from wet to dry weight for reporting, the UK 2018 figure for C&I that is incorporated in Table 9 (42.6 million tonnes) does not differ greatly from that published in Table 7 on an ‘as received’ basis, but excluding sewage sludge (43.9 million tonnes). Minor additional revisions are detailed in the methodology section.
Total waste generation is split by material and Nomenclature of Economic Activities (NACE) economic activity responsible for generating it. Users should be aware that ‘total waste’ includes all waste produced by the economy and is therefore much broader than frequently analysed subsets such as ‘municipal waste’ or ‘Waste from Households’. Users should also consider the varying natures and impacts of different waste materials included within total waste.
For the 2018 waste generation figures for England, the co-mingled recyclates collected exclusively from households have been separated into the individual materials using proportions derived from composition waste studies carried out by WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme). We have made revisions to the 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 waste generation data, for England, to separate out the co-mingled waste into individual waste types.
Municipal solid wastes (MSW) are mixtures of various solid wastes that are generated by human activities (Yan et al., 2020). The constituents of MSW include food waste, paper, biomass, glass, metals, plastics, rubbers and textiles.
Sep 9, 2024 · Solid-waste management, the collecting, treating, and disposing of solid material that is discarded because it has served its purpose or is no longer useful. Improper disposal of municipal solid waste can create unsanitary conditions, pollution, and outbreaks of disease.
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), commonly called “trash” or “garbage,” includes wastes such as durable goods (e.g., tires, furniture), nondurable goods (e.g., newspapers, plastic plates/cups), containers and packaging (e.g., milk cartons, plastic wrap), and other wastes (e.g., yard waste, food).
Jun 23, 2020 · Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is a specific category of waste stemming from households, and can include commercial and industrial wastes, depending on the reporting standard (Wilson and Velis 2015). MSW accounted for 2 billion tonnes of the total waste produced in 2016.
