On the occasion of the International Day, of the Environmental, the Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Destatis) presented preliminary results on the volume of waste generated in Germany in 2019. The data show that the total amount of waste remained almost unchanged compared to 2018 at 416.5 million tons with only a slight decrease by 0.2 percent. Previously, the total volume of generated waste in Germany peaked at 417.2 million tons in 2018.
These are further details:
- 'Construction and demolition waste' made up the bulk of the total 416.5 million tons of waste, with 230.9 million tons (55.4 percent), followed by 56.2 million tons of so-called 'secondary waste' (13.5 percent), which was already processed in a facility.
- Furthermore, the total volume of waste consisted of approximately 50.7 million tons of 'other waste' from production and business and ‘municipal waste’ (12.2 percent each), as well as 28.1 million tons of 'waste from extracting and processing mineral resources' (6.8 percent).
- In 2019, the recovery rate of waste generation totaled 81.6 percent (339.8 million tons), and material recovery i.e., recycling accounted for the majority of 292.0 million tons (70 percent) of all waste.
- The so-called deposition rate of waste disposed of in landfills amounted to 16.5 percent.
Source: Destatis
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