Wastes are materials that are not prime products (that is products produced for the market) for which the initial user has no further use in terms of his/her own purposes of production, transformation or consumption, and of which he/she wants to dispose. Wastes may be generated during the extraction of raw materials, the processing of raw materials into intermediate and final products, the consumption of final products, and other human activities. Residuals recycled or reused at the place of generation are excluded.

The Environment Statistics Database contains selected water and waste statistics by country. This data set includes metrics for hazardous waste generated, municipal waste collected and total population served by municipal waste collection.

Statistics on water and waste are based on official statistics supplied by national statistical offices and/or ministries of environment (or equivalent institutions) in countries in response to the biennial UNSD/UNEP Questionnaire on Environment Statistics. They were complemented by data on EU and OECD member and partner countries from OECD and Eurostat. Environment statistics is still in an early stage of development in many countries, and data are often sparse. The statistics selected here are those of relatively good quality and geographic coverage. The online database currently covers the years 1990, 1995 to 2009.