Submission (#7822) Approved

A waste mountain of 2.5 thousand kg per inhabitant is also very high for Europe, where the average in the 28 countries of the European Union is nearly 1.8 thousand kg per inhabitant.

The relatively high waste production is related to the fact that the Netherlands produces large quantities of goods for export, which causes waste generation in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands produces a lot of waste but is also one of the European countries where much waste is recycled. At 1.7 thousand kg of recycled waste per capita in 2016, the Netherlands ranks 3rd in the European Union (EU-28) after Luxembourg and Belgium.

The large amount of recycled waste per inhabitant shows how circular the Dutch economy is. Another indicator is the use of recycled materials in the production process. At 29 percent, the Netherlands’ use of recycled materials is the highest of the EU-28. The large-scale reuse of waste in the construction sector is an especially important contributor to this.