Waste from service industries

Waste from the service sector

Energy-, environmental- and transport statistics

National

Annual

The statistics constitute a part of the Waste Account for Norway, which is the data source for reporting waste statistics to EU/OECD (Municipal waste) and to Eurostat pursuant to Regulation on waste statistics (EC 2150/2002).

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The purpose of the statistics is production of annual, national figures for waste from the Service Industries. The figures also contribute to the Waste account for Norway. The investigation of waste from Service Industries started as a pilot study in 1999. Waste from wholesale and retail was examined, based on the industries own knowledge on the subject. In 2000 Statistics Norway got access to Norsk Gjenvinnings customer register, which among others contained about 5500 Service Industry establishments. Based on these data, figures for wholesale and retail was published in February 2001. The statistics were expanded to cover the whole Service Industry, and preliminary figures for 1999 were published in the winter 2001/2002. Later, after revision of method and data, new figures for 1999 were published in the report Waste Generation in the Service Industry Sector 2002/24 (Skullerud & Stave 2002). A new pilot study was initiated in spring 2007, with the intention to collect registers from more waste collectors than in previous studies, and to establish consecutive annual statistics on the subject. The figures for 2006 are based on data collected in this pilot study.

The data collection for 2008 was done with filing requirement. As opposed to the 2006 datacollection, the respondent sample of 2008 included waste collectors (enterprises that which collects waste) that collects spesific pure waste fractions. This was done to improve the quality of the data basis, both due to sample coverage and waste fraction incompletness for the establishments. As a consequense of using filing requirement in the data collection for 2008, more customer registers was collected resulting in a larger sample.

The 2006 figures are recalculated as a consequence of different data quality for the two years. The data basis for 2006 has been supplied with 2008 figures by imputation for mutual esablishments in the cases where new respondents contributed to a more complete waste data.

Figures from the statistics are used directly in the Waste Account for Norway, and for international reports (EU and OECD). The statistics are used in waste related assessments by the authorities. In addition, the figures are of interest to the Service Industries, waste handlers, the media and the public.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

The statistics are connected to the Waste Account for Norway. Among several sources, this statistics are used in The Waste Account for Norway. The figures for the Service industries in the Waste Account is, however somewhat higher, than in this statistics. The Waste Account include sludge from sewage macerator, causing discrepancy concerning sludge. The Waste Account for Norway also in some cases will place waste that is most likely from the service sector, but not certain in this industry. This cause some waste fractions to be somewhat higher in the Waste Account than in this statistics.

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

This statistics is a part of the nasjonal program for oficial statistics, main area Nature, climate and environment, subarea Waste.

Regulation on waste statistics (EC 2150/2002).

The statistics comprise waste as defined in the Pollution Control Act §27, except hazardous waste and scrapped vehicles. The statistics for 2006 cover establishments classified as Service Industry, section G-O, according to Standard Industrial Classification (SIC2002) . The following are excluded from the statistics, because they handle waste from other establishments: 51.57- Wholesale of waste and scrap, 60- Land transport; transport via pipelines, 70- Real estate activities, 90- Sewage and refuse disposal, sanitation and similar activities.

For 2008 the statistics are compiled by both by SIC2002 and SIC2007. From 2009 the statistics is compiled only by SIC2007.

The statistics for 2008 and later years cover establishments classified as Service Industry, section G-S, according to Standard Industrial Classification (SIC2007) .

The following are excluded from the statistics, because they handle waste from other establishments: 46.77- Wholesale of waste and scrap, 49- Land transport; transport via pipelines, 68- Real estate activities, 81.109- Other combined facilities support activities.

For the publication of 2020-numbers in July 2021, amounts of Hazardous waste is omitted.

The statistics are compiled on data from customer registers gathered from waste collectors. The Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises of Norway has also been applied. Figures on wrecked vehicles are compiled from The Register of Vehicles at the Directorate of Public Roads and vehicle refund data from the Directorate of Customs and Excise. Hazardous waste are compiled from SSBs "Foundation database", including ideally all hazardous waste handled in for approved treatment in Norway.

The sample consists of Service Industry establishments with a customer relationship to waste collectors, who can be identified using the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises of Statistics Norway. Establishments in the industries as defined in section 3.1 are excluded. Only establishments with employee figures are used in the inflation of the sample.

Editing is defined here as checking, examining and amending data.

The 2006 customer registers was voluntarily reported from the waste collectors. From 2008 data are collected with filing requirement.

The identity of the establishments is controlled using the business register. Establishments who carry out secondary waste treatment are excluded before inflation. Such establishments are identified graphically by plotting waste per employee against sector. By doing this, establishments with disproportionate amounts of waste per employee will become visible. Outliers are handled by regression diagnostics, identifying establishments that both strongly differ from the strata and will have great impact on the final result.

Inflation of the sample is done according to standard statistical methods. A rate model is used. In this model, we assume that variable x (employees) explains variable y (amount of waste), and that there is an approximately linear coherence between variable x and variable y. The ratio between variable x summed over respectively the population and sample are used to inflate the waste to cover the whole population. The population is stratified by crossing employee groups and industry. This is done to account for the fact that waste per employee vary both by size and industry.

Not relevant

Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.

Statistics Norway can make exceptions to the general rule if deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the EEA agreement, if the respondent is a public authority, if the respondent has consented to this, or when the information disclosed is openly accessible to the public.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

Waste from Service Industry has been made for 1999 and 2006. Because of significant discrepancy inn coverage, comparison should be limited to wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles and personal and household goods (section G). The coverage in the 2008 survey was further improved due to a larger sample. The extended data collection also resulted in more complete waste data for the establishments. Adjustment of the 2006 figures have been made due to this. Nevertheless the comparability conserning the pure waste fractions are still uncertain.

As of 2012 the sample size has been increased and the calculations have been somewhat changed. This change has led to an increase in the numbers compared to earlier years. The increased sample size also contributes to the increase as fewer waste fractions are now outside the sample. We therefore assume that the uncertainty in the figures is less than before.

There are also changes in the calculation of hazardous waste. The numbers used are from the statistics on hazardous waste, instead of using separate calculations for this statistics on service industries. This has involved some adjustments to some of the waste fractions.

Before the publication of the 2023 figures, the statistics have undergone a quality improvement. Among other things, the links for identifying sub-companies of an enterprise have been improved. This is necessary to identify which of the companies belongs to a company that has delivered the waste in question. In addition, the strata used for inflation have been adjusted. These changes have led to some differences between previously published and new figures. When publishing figures for 2023, new back-calculated figures are also published back to 2020. The change in method is nevertheless not greater than that we are still comparing with figures also published before 2020.

Errors in the data may occur as a consequence of poor quality of reported files. This may result in: 1) erroneous amounts of waste, 2) complication of the establishment identification process. Misunderstandings and errors regarding units will be revealed. In case of missing variables on reported data, a new file will be requested. Insufficient identification of establishments is solved by excluding unidentified establishments. Waste amounts for these establishments will be estimated in the inflation process. Waste given in units other than tonnes and kilos will be converted to tonnes based on the waste collectors own conversion coefficients. Inaccurate or incorrect coefficients may result in erroneous amounts of waste. These coefficients can, to some extent, be controlled by comparing the coefficients for the different materials.

The 2006 survey was based on voluntary participation, which resulted in fewer incoming files than expected. The 2008 survey was done with filing requirement, which resulted in more incoming customer registers.

For some sections the sample coverage (share of population within the sample) is low. This, in combination with great variation in waste generation by employee, gives uncertain calculations in these sections. The sample is based on customer registers, which leads to some peculiar sources of error:

1) The sample include only establishments registered in waste collectors registers, thus the sample are not random.

2) The calculations are based on register from a selection of waste collectors. Some of the customers probably delivered a few pure waste fractions to waste collectors outside the selection, or to receivers outside the waste collection business. The total waste amounts and the amount of pure fractions may be underestimated, while the share of mixed waste could be overestimated.

The 2008 data collection is extended to improve data quality, especially for the pure waste fractions. The uncertainty of the statistics are thus lower for 2008 than for 2006.

The 2006 figures have been recalculated. Hazardous waste and wrecked vehicles are now included. The 2006 figures are also adjusted to compensate for quality differences between the two data basis. Nevertheless, the uncertainty of the 2006 figures should be considered somewhat greater than the 2008 figures.

As a result of the extended data collection for 2008, wetorganic waste showed a significant growth since 2006. An analysis of the waste composition per waste collector pointed out that new respondents in 2008 was significant contributors to increased amounts of wetorganic waste in 2008. The figures concerning wetorganic waste in 2006 was therefore recalculated based on 2008 figures using employees as auxiliary variable.

A revision is a planned change to figures that have already been published, for example when releasing final figures as a follow-up to published preliminary figures. See also Statistics Norway’s principles for revisions.