Turkey was the main destination for waste exported from the EU, with a volume of around 14.7 million tonnes in 2021, which is more than three times as much as in 2004 and almost half of the total exports of EU waste, according to the latest data from Eurostat.
Eurostat on Wednesday said that exports of waste from the EU to non-EU countries reached 33 million tonnes last year, an increase of 77 percent since 2004, with 14.7 million tonnes having been exported to Turkey.
🗑️➡️🇹🇷Turkey is the largest destination for waste exported from the EU, 14.7 million tonnes in 2021, almost half of the total exports of waste. Followed by:
🇮🇳India (2.4 million tonnes)
🇪🇬Egypt (1.9 million tonnes)
🇨🇭Switzerland (1.7 million tonnes)
👉https://t.co/0YxTUIuWiX pic.twitter.com/S0ZfPjZxSI— EU_Eurostat (@EU_Eurostat) May 25, 2022
Imports of waste from non-EU countries increased by 11 percent since 2004, amounting to 19.7 million tonnes in 2021, the statistical office also said.
The data also showed India, which received almost 2.4 million tonnes of waste from the EU in 2021, as the second-largest destination, followed by Egypt (1.9 Million tonnes), Switzerland (1.7 million tonnes), United Kingdom (1.5 million tonnes), Norway (1.4 million tonnes), Pakistan (1.3 million tonnes), Indonesia (1.1 million tonnes), United States (0.9 million tonnes) and Morocco (0.6 million tonnes).
While Pakistan has markedly grown as a destination for EU waste, with volumes increasing from 0.1 million tonnes in 2004 to 1.3 million tonnes in 2021, the EU exports of waste to China have fallen from a peak of 10.1 million tonnes in 2009 to 0.4 million tonnes in 2021, the statistics further revealed.
In 2021, exports of ferrous metals waste — iron and steel — amounted to 19.5 million tonnes, accounting for more than half of all waste exports from the EU, including 13.1 million tonnes received by Turkey, which corresponds to 67 percent of all ferrous metal waste exported from the EU.
Considerable amounts of paper waste were also exported from the EU last year, Eurostat said, adding that 4.4 million tonnes exported accounted for 13 percent of the EU’s waste exports in 2021, with India being the major destination of paper waste, receiving 1.2 million tonnes, followed by Indonesia (0.9 million tonnes) and Turkey (0.4 million tonnes).