The Furniture Waste in the EU

DEFINITIONS

In the European Union almost all household waste, which is collected by private and/or public companies, can be considered as municipal solid waste because it is managed at the municipal waste level.

Furniture is durable good and at the end of its lifetime it generally becomes a municipal solid waste (MSW).

The material flows methodology produces an estimate of total municipal solid waste (MSW) generation in the European Union, by material categories and by product categories. The term generation refers to the weight of materials and products as they enter the waste management system from residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial sources and before materials recovery or combustion takes place.

Pre-consumer (industrial) scrap is not included in the generation estimates.

Source reduction activities take place ahead of generation. Source reduction activities reduce the amount or toxicity of wastes before they enter the MSW management system. Reuse is a source reduction activity involving the recovery or reapplication of a package, used product, or material in a manner that retains its original form or identity.

Reuse of products such as furniture, refillable glass bottles, reusable plastic food storage containers or refurbished wood pallets is considered source reduction, not recycling.

Recovery of materials includes products removed from the waste stream for the purpose of recycling.

For recovered products, recovery equals reported purchases of post-consumer recovered material plus net exports (if any) of the material.

Combustion of MSW is estimated with and without energy recovery. Combustion with energy recovery is often called "waste-to-energy," while combustion without energy is called incineration.

Combustion of separated materials--wood, rubber from tires, paper, and plastics--is included in the estimates of combustion.

Discards include the MSW remaining after recovery for recycling. These discards would presumably be combusted or land filled, although some MSW is littered, stored or disposed on-site, or burned on-site, particularly in rural areas. No good estimates for these other disposal practices are available, but the total amounts of MSW involved are presumed to be small.