Sources:

UNSD/UNEP 2001, 2004 and 2006 questionnaire on Environment statistics, Waste section.
OECD/Eurostat 2004 questionnaire on Environment statistics, Waste section.
OECD Environmental Data, Compendium 2006/2007, Waste section.

Footnotes:

1. Starting with the exports in 2003, the data come from the regular weighing and there have been modifications of management and of the weighing methods.
2. Includes wastes from new mining operations.
3. Data refer to primary waste.
4. Waste from hospitals only.
5. Data refer to biomedical waste.
6. Data refer to hazardous waste collected (sum of collected industrial and septic hazardous waste).
7. Data refer to Industrial Solid Hazardous Waste.
8. Break in time series due to a new Waste Act in 1998. 1998 onwards: data include municipal hazardous waste.
9. Break in time series in 2002 due to a new Waste Act.
10. Data created under the inventory in 1990 reflect the amount of the waste accumulated before 1990. Therefore data do not refer to annually produced waste.
11. 1990: includes red mud.
12. Break in time series in 1995; 1995: excludes red mud.
13. Includes recovery on site.
14. Includes reported and unreported waste, contaminated soil and on-site treatment.
15. Includes reported and unreported waste, contaminated soil (2004: 307 thousand tonnes) and on-site treatment.
16. Data refer to toxic waste.
17. This quantity represents biomedical waste only.
18. Source: Basel Convention.
19. Estimates and includes biological infectious waste.
20. Data are based on surveys covering 27280 enterprises; includes biological infectious waste.
21. Includes contaminated soil.
22. Excludes contaminated soil.
23. 1990 data is a rough estimate based on a study carried out in 1988 and exclude onsite treatment.
24. 2003: new type of waste are defined as hazardous in legislation.
25. Data refer to health care private centers waste taken from the Medical Environmental Survey.
26. Data refer to health care centers waste taken from the Environmental Survey for Health Care Centers.
27. 1998 onwards: data refer to a new classification based on the European Waste Catalogue.
28. Data refer to solid chemical and PVC wastes. Figures prior to 1993 do not include metallic sludge in solid chemical and PVC wastes.
29. Provisional data.
30. Hazardous waste from manufacturing industry.
31. Data refer to industrial hazardous wastes.
32. Production before 1997: defined by the Control of Pollution (Special Wastes) Regulations, 1980.
33. From 1997 onwards: Special wastes as defined by the Hazardous Waste List (94/904/EC) and implemented by the Special Waste Regulations,1996.
34. From 1997, data exclude waste water.
35. Reporting requirements have been changed in 2001; includes some waste water.
36. Data refer to Serbia and Montenego.

Definitions & Technical notes:

Hazardous waste is waste that owing to its toxic, infectious, radioactive or flammable properties poses an actual or potential hazard to the health of humans, other living organisms, or the environment. Hazardous waste here refers to categories of waste to be controlled according to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (Article 1 and Annex I). If data are not available according to the Basel Convention, amounts can be given according to national definitions.

Data Quality:

Although countries are asked to report data on hazardous waste according to the categories of the Basel Convention, most countries are not able to do so, and supply data according to national definitions. Some countries have indicated this in footnotes, but it can be assumed that this also applies to other countries. National definitions of hazardous waste may change over time, as national legislation is revised. Therefore the definition of hazardous waste varies greatly from one country to another, and sometime also over time. Moreover, data only refer to wastes declared as hazardous by the generator, or by the company responsible for disposing of the waste. How far this is represents the real amount of hazardous waste generated in the country will depend on how well the sector is regulated and policed. Data quality and comparability are therefore limited and trends should be interpreted with care.

Policy Relevance:

By definition, hazardous waste poses a threat to human and ecological health, often for many years. Correct disposal of hazardous waste is therefore a public and environmental health issue. The amount of hazardous waste generated in a country is closely linked to the country's economy; a highly industrialised country or one with a large mining industry is likely to generate more hazardous waste than a country whose economy is based more on services or on agriculture.

In the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (http://www.basel.int/), 164 countries agreed to minimize the generation of hazardous waste, to assure sound management of hazardous wastes, to control transboundary movement of hazardous wastes; and to improve institutional and technical capabilities especially for developing countries and countries with economies in transition. At later meetings, Parties agreed to ban on the export of hazardous wastes from OECD to non-OECD countries ('Basel ban').

As a general rule, companies that generate hazardous waste must bear the cost of disposing of it. In many cases this may be easier for the company to do internally, for example through recycling or high temperature incineration. These should be encouraged as they remove the need to transport the waste, and thus the risk of leakage during transport. However, the incinerators must be well regulated and regularly controlled to avoid emissions of toxic by-products from the incineration process.