Companies in charge of handling municipal waste collected 22.4 million tonnes of waste in 2023, 3.1% less than in the previous year. Of this, 17.0 million of tonnes was mixed waste and 5.4 million was separate collection waste.
Millions of tonnes
In per capita terms, in Spain 464.3 kilograms of waste were collected per person per year, 4.2% less than in 2022.
Kilograms per inhabitant
Of the total waste per person per year, 353.1 kilograms per person per year was mixed waste and 111.2 kilograms was separate collection. Of the latter, 31.8 kilograms of Paper and cardboard, 32.2 kilograms of Animal and plant waste, and 19.3 kilograms of Glass were collected.
Animal and plant waste collected separately increased by 6.0% in 2023, and Paper and Cardboard increased by 1.8%. On the contrary, collection of Glass dropped by 5.5%.
Thousands of tonnes
In 2023, the Autonomous Communities that collected the most municipal waste were Andalucía (4.6 million tonnes), Cataluña (3.3 million) and Comunitat Valenciana (2.7 million).
By type of material, Catalonia recorded the most collection of Paper and Cardboard (409.1 thousand tonnes) and Glass (199.8 thousand tonnes), while Comunidad de Madrid stood out for the highest collection of Mixed Packaging (219.3 thousand tonnes).
Thousands of tonnes
Thousands of tonnes
In per capita terms, Illes Balears collected the largest amount of waste per person (661.4 kilograms) in 2023.
In contrast, the lowest figure (378.6 kilograms) was collected in Comunidad de Madrid.
Kilograms per inhabitant
The data published today is provisional and will be revised when next year's data is released. All results of this operation are available on INEBase.
The main objective of the Statistics on Waste Collection and Treatment is to quantify in physical units the urban waste collected and the final treatment, both of urban and non-urban waste, by treatment operation. Thus, from the total quantities treated for each category of waste, it is possible to work out which quantity refers to each of the treatment operations considered.
The data in this press release refer to the management of urban waste.
The collection of urban waste includes domestic waste and commercial or industrial waste which comes under municipal jurisdiction, collected in urban containers, at clean points, or other municipal collection systems. It also includes waste from street cleaning and biodegradable waste from cleaning parks and gardens.
The population figures used are those of the resident population published by the INE on 1 July 2023.
More information on the methodology and the standardised methodological report.
INE statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Good Practice for European Statistics. More information on Quality at INE and the Code of Best Practices.
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