Biodegradable municipal waste to landfill

Key trends 

• The quantity of BMW disposed to landfill was 109,384 tonnes in 2021 and 129,572 tonnes in 2022. These are well within Ireland’s current limit of 610,000 tonnes, which is calculated based on the tonnage of BMW landfilled in 1995 (1.3 million tonnes).
• As shown in Chart 1, the quantities of BMW disposed to landfill in Ireland have been on a largely downward trend since 2010.
• There has been a slight increase in BMW disposed to landfill in 2021 and 2022 compared to the 2020 figures. This corresponds to a rise in the total amount of municipal waste accepted at landfill in the last two years.
• Ireland has met all previous BMW diversion targets and is well within the stricter targets for 2020 under the revised Landfill Directive (2018/850), as shown in Chart 1.
• The decline in BMW to landfill since 2010 reflects a combination of factors - falling quantities of municipal waste sent for landfill in Ireland; the increased separate collection of dry recyclables and biowaste; and the fact that most residual waste in Ireland is now pre-treated mechanically and/or bio-stabilised at waste facilities before it is sent to landfill.
• The quantity of municipal waste treated at landfill in Ireland has declined markedly from 1.5 million tonnes in 2010 to 317,000 tonnes in 2020, before increasing again to   466,911.41 tonnes in 2022 (based on data reported by landfills). Only three landfills in Ireland accepted municipal waste in 2022, compared with 28 in 2010.
• The general decline in BMW to landfill is mirrored in steady rise in the quantity of municipal biowaste treated by composting/anaerobic digestion in Ireland which has increased significantly since 2010 with the introduction of the Food Waste Regulations and the associated roll-out of brown bins to commercial premises and households (see Composting and Anaerobic Digestion, Figure 3). The revised Waste Framework Directive ((EU) 2018/851) makes the separate collection of biowaste mandatory from the end-2023. This requirement is likely to result in a further decline in the BMW content of municipal waste landfilled in Ireland in the years ahead.