Per head municipal waste grows to 565kg

A total of 3,122,705 tonnes of municipal waste was generated in the country in 2019.

The amount of waste also grew relative to Finland’s population, according to the Statistics Finland.

At the beginning of the 2010s, the amount of waste settled at around 500kg per capita. In 2019, the amount of municipal waste was 565 kg per person, growing by 15kg from the year before.

Compared with the previous year, the growth amounted to around 80,000 tonnes, or just under three per cent.

The growth in the amount of waste was more moderate than in the previous year. In addition to waste generated in housing, comparable waste from trade, manufacturing, and services is regarded as municipal waste.

No great changes took place in the mutual shares of treatment methods of waste.

Since 2012, energy recovery of municipal waste has been done using the most significant treatment mode – in 2019 its share fell slightly, to 56 per cent. Energy recovery of municipal waste is based on combined production of electricity and heat, and the heat is often utilised in district heating networks.

More than 1.5 million tonnes of mixed waste were generated in municipalities: the amount grew by just under five per cent from the previous year. Nearly all mixed waste ends up in energy recovery.