World Waste Status

World Waste Status was a research and awareness-raising project implemented by the organization Let's Do It! and its Knowledge Team in 2012 - 2013. It was aimed at collecting, analyzing, and visualizing data on the state of the waste issue in the world and its connection to climate change. The project was funded by the Ministry of Environment of Estonia.

Key objectives of the World Waste Status project included:
1. Acquire the most recent data on the waste generation, accumulation, composition and management in all countries of the world;
2. Obtain the data on the characteristics of the major landfill sites and incinerators in each country: amount of waste there, its composition, sources, etc.;
3. Based on waste quantities estimate the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (carbon dioxide and methane) generation in each country (including major landfills and incinerators) and their avoidance in case of moving towards the “zero waste world” vision (including assumptions about both legal and illegal landfills).

Thus, the World Waste Status dataset contains the following data up until the year 2012:
1. Comparative statistics of waste generation (per capita per day, total per day, per capita per year, total per year), composition (in % and in tones per year), collection and treatment (in % and in tones per year) in practically every country of the world;
2. Generation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from landfilled waste in each country according to the two most used models for GHG emissions estimation: IPCC and LandGEM;
3. Locations of waste management facilities (open dumps, landfills, and waste incinerators) in each country.