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Weekly Bulletin is. 39, 1996

Norwegians are producing more and more waste


Each inhabitant of Norway threw away an average of 289 kilos of household waste for collection by municipal waste disposal services last year. This is 36 kilos more than in 1992, when Statistics Norway carried out the previous complete survey. Fifty two kilos per capita were delivered for recycling. This is 31 kilos more than in 1992.

Households generated a total of 1.26 million tons of waste last year. Of this amount, 230,000 tons or 18 per cent was sent on for recycling. This means that every inhabitant delivered on average one kilo of waste for recycling per week. The comparative figures for 1992 were nine per cent and 0.4 kilo of waste per week. Although a steadily increasing share of household waste is recycled, the amount of waste not recycled increased by nine kilos per inhabitant from 1992 to 1995.

By the end of 1995 various types of waste sorting and collection systems had been established in 234 of Norway's 435 municipalities (local governments). Slightly more than one million households or nearly half of the population were covered by the systems. Paper and cardboard were sorted in all of these municipalities. In addition, 69 of the municipalities had introduced waste sorting of beverage cartons. Fifty had systems for sorting food and biodegradable waste.

New Statistics

Municipal waste, 1995.
Statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics and in Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Waste Statistics, Municipal Waste for 1992 and 1995. More information: Anders Falnes, tel. +47 62 88 55 29, e-mail: anf@sb.no or Eva Vinju, tel. +47 62 88 54 76, e-mail: evv@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin is. 39, 1996