Waste management

Statistics Estonia

Economic and Environmental Statistics Department

Hanna Pentsa

Leading Analyst

51 Tatari Str, 10134 Tallinn, Estonia

hanna.pentsa [at] stat.ee

27/03/2025

27/03/2025

Annual generation of waste and waste treatment by type of waste

Waste generation by economic activities, every second year (even years)

Estonian Classification of Economic Activities (EMTAK 2008) based on NACE Rev. 2

European List of Waste (LoW)

Waste Statistical Nomenclature (EWC-Stat)

All sectors and economic activities

Categories of waste:

- production or consumption residues;

- off-specification products;

- products whose date for appropriate use has expired;

- materials spilled, lost or having undergone other mishap, including any materials, equipment or other objects contaminated as a result of the mishap;

- materials contaminated or soiled as a result of planned actions, e.g. residues from cleaning operations, packing materials, containers;

- unusable accessories, e.g. reject batteries, exhausted catalysts;

- substances which no longer perform satisfactorily, e.g. contaminated acids, solvents and exhausted tempering salts;

- residues of industrial processes, e.g. slags, still bottoms;

- residues from pollution abatement processes, e.g. scrubber sludges, baghouse dusts, spent filters;

- machining and finishing residues, e.g. lathe turnings, mill scales;

- residues from raw materials extraction and processing, e.g. mining residues, oil field slops;

- adulterated materials, e.g. oils contaminated with PCBs;

- all materials, substances or products whose use is prohibited;

- products for which the holder has no further use, e.g. agricultural, household, office, commercial and shop discards;

- contaminated materials, substances or products resulting from remedial action with respect to land;

- any materials, substances or products which are not contained in the above categories.

Hazardous waste – waste which due to the hazardous properties may cause a hazard to health, property or the environment. Wastes are defined hazardous according to Regulation of the Government of the Republic No 263 of 24 November 1998, Approval of the Lists of Waste Categories, Waste Types and Hazardous Waste. The list is based on the European Waste Catalogue (EWC).

Waste – any movable property or registered ship belonging to any of the waste categories which the holder discards, intends or is required to discard.

Waste generation – waste generated in enterprise during the reporting period due to production or other activity including waste collected from others.

Waste management – collection, delivery, recovery and disposal of waste.

Waste permit – a right granted to a person handling waste or waste producer to carry out one or several of the waste handling operations specified in Waste Act or generate waste in the areas of activity specified in § 75 of Waste Act (RT I 2004, 9, 52). Waste permit also determines the requirements for exercising the right. Waste permits are granted by the Environmental Board.

A waste permit is required for:

- disposal of waste;

- waste recovery;

- collection or transport of hazardous waste;

- collection or transport of metal waste produced or transferred by other persons, except collection or transport of metal packagings of beverages taxable on the basis of the Packaging Excise Duty Act (RT I 1997, 5/6, 31; 1999, 54, 583; 2000, 59, 381; 2001, 88, 531; 2003, 88, 591), for the purposes of further commercial distribution or recovery;

- waste transport organized by a local government;

- transport of municipal waste if carried out as a business or professional activity.

Economic unit

Enterprises who are engaged in waste management or generate big amounts of waste in the production process

FRAME

Not applicable

Estonia as a whole

1995–…

Not applicable

Quantity of generated and managed waste – tonne

Year

DIRECTLY APPLICABLE LEGAL ACTS

Commission Regulation (EC) No 1445/2005 of 5 September 2005 defining the proper quality evaluation criteria and the contents of the quality reports for waste statistics for the purposes of Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council

Regulation (EC) No 221/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 amending Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 on waste statistics, as regards the implementing powers conferred on the Commission

Regulation (EU) No 849/2010 of 27 September 2010 amending Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council on waste statistics

Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2002 on waste statistics

OTHER LEGAL ACTS

Waste Act

OTHER AGREEMENTS

European Environment Agency (EEA)

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act.

The dissemination of data collected for the production of official statistics is based on the requirements laid down in §§ 34 and 35 of the Official Statistics Act.

The principles for treatment of confidential data can be found here.

Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month).

Calendar

All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8:00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar.

Annual

Not published

Not published

Data are published under the subject area “Environment / Environmental pressure” in the statistical database at https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat.

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes.

Data serve as input for statistical activities 10601 “Material flow accounts”, 10105 “Energy accounts”, 50201 “Sustainable development indicators” and 10001 “Environmental trends”.

Manual on waste statistics. A handbook for data collection on waste generation and treatment, Eurostat (2013)

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-manuals-and-guidelines/-/KS-RA-13-015

The quality report is submitted to Eurostat in even years in accordance with the regulation on waste statistics. Separate quality reports have not been published.

To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act.

Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process; this information can take many forms, including feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees. This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions.

Ministry of the Environment

Environmental Board

Estonian Rescue Board

Ministry of the Interior

Stockholm Environment Insitute (SEI Tallinn)

Local government institutions

Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys.

Complete for the territory of Estonia as a whole

The type of survey and the data collection methods ensure sufficient coverage and timeliness.

Not applicable

Not applicable

The data are published 300 days after the end of the reference year (T + 300).

The data about waste generation by economic activity are published 540 days after the end of the reference year (T + 540).

The data have been published at the time announced in the release calendar.

The common international methodology allows a cross-country comparison of the data collected under the regulation on waste statistics.

In 2000, the classification by type of material was replaced with a classification by type of waste, which meant that one time series ended and another was started. In 2002, the classification by type of waste was harmonised with the European List of Waste (LoW), meaning that a new time series was started again.

Waste statistics according to regulation on waste statistics are related to statistical activity 22203 “Manufactured goods and industrial services”, which is used as input in classifying waste of unspecified origin by economic activities. Waste statistics provide input for statistical activities 10601 “Material flow accounts”, 10105 “Energy accounts”, 50201 “Sustainable development indicators” and 10001 “Environmental trends”.

The data are inherently coherent, as the same methodology and data sources are used.

The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics of the website of Statistics Estonia.

The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, errors are discovered, new or better data become available.

SURVEY DATA

Not used

ADMINISTRATIVE DATA

The following data are received from the Estonian Environment Agency: waste generation by type of waste; waste disposal, incl. disposal in landfills; waste recovery, incl. energy recovery; export and import of waste.

DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES

Data from statistical activity 22203 “Manufactured goods and industrial services” are used.

Annual

Enterprises which have an obligation to report on their waste management submit the report to the Environmental Board, and the Environmental Board sends the reports to the Estonian Environment Agency.

Statistics Estonia receives the data from the Estonian Environment Agency by e-mail.

Arithmetic and qualitative controls are used in the validation process, including comparison with other data. Before data dissemination, the internal coherence of the data is checked. The data are compared with the data of previous periods and checked for inconsistencies.

Microdata are aggregated to the level necessary for analysis. The collected data are converted into statistical output according to the guidelines in the manual on waste statistics.

Not applied

Not available