How much waste does the UK produce? For 2026 the figure works out at an estimated 208 million tonnes, or roughly 458 billion pounds, counting everything its building sites, businesses and homes throw out.
The last UK-wide measurement is for 2020, when the total was 191.5 million tonnes, and England's own count runs to 2024. In England, which produces about 85% of the UK's waste, construction, demolition and excavation generated 66.4% of the 2024 total and households 12.3%.
The UK recycled 73.2% of its packaging and 44.5% of its household waste in 2024. The country still generates an estimated 208 million tonnes of waste a year, because most of that tonnage is rubble and soil from building sites that never goes near a household bin.
The UK's waste year by year (2010-2026)
Defra counts the UK's total waste every two years. The newest measured row is 2020, so the 2022 and 2024 rows are estimates built from England's measured totals, and the 2026 row moves 2024 on by building activity and population.
| Year | Total waste (tonnes) | Change on the previous reading |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 208,000,000 | -1.4 million (-0.7%) |
| 2024 | 209,300,000 | -15.8 million (-7.0%) |
| 2022 | 225,200,000 | +33.7 million (+17.6%) |
| 2020 | 191,505,668 | -30.7 million (-13.8%) |
| 2018 | 222,173,355 | +3.9 million (+1.8%) |
| 2016 | 218,277,759 | +4.6 million (+2.2%) |
| 2014 | 213,658,286 | +14.2 million (+7.1%) |
| 2012 | 199,494,701 | -7.2 million (-3.5%) |
| 2010 | 206,726,113 | baseline |
Note: Defra's UK statistics on waste, covering all economic activities plus households. The 2022, 2024 and 2026 rows are estimates rounded to the nearest 100,000 tonnes. The 2024 row rests on England's provisional figure, and the 2026 row moves it on by building activity and population.
Why the UK's line dips in 2020
The one sharp fall in the series came in 2020, when the UK's total dropped 13.8% to 191.5 million tonnes. Almost all of it was construction waste, which fell from 137.8 million tonnes in 2018 to 117.5 million.
ONS's monthly construction output index moved almost exactly in step. It averaged 98.1 in 2018 and 84.4 in 2020, a fall of 14.0%.
The 2020 figure also has a gap in it. A cyber-attack left Scotland without most of its 2020 data, so Defra used Scotland's 2018 figures in most places, and Wales reused its 2018 survey of business waste.
How the UK's 2024 and 2026 figures are built
Defra's newest UK-wide total is for 2020, but England's is measured up to 2024, with the 2024 figure still provisional. England has produced between 83.9% and 85.1% of the UK's waste in every measured year since 2012.
The estimate scales England's 2024 total up by England's 2020 share of the UK, as set out below.
| Step | Value |
|---|---|
| England's measured total in 2024 | 178.1 million tonnes |
| England's share of the UK total in 2020 | 85.1% |
| UK estimate for 2024 | 209.3 million tonnes |
| Range for 2024 | 207 to 212 million tonnes |
| UK estimate for 2026 | 208.0 million tonnes |
| Range for 2026 | 189 to 219 million tonnes |
Note: For 2024 the low end holds Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at their 2020 tonnage, and the high end uses England's smallest share since 2012, which was 83.9%. The 2026 range is explained below.
Before using it, the same method was tested on the years Defra has already measured. Projecting from one measured year to the next, it landed this close to the real UK total:
- From 2010 to 2012. 3.4% above the measured total.
- From 2012 to 2014. 1.4% above.
- From 2014 to 2016. 0.6% below.
- From 2016 to 2018. 0.3% below.
- From 2018 to 2020. 0.9% above.
Carrying the estimate to 2026
Defra's figures stop at 2024, so 2026 rests on two stated assumptions, each applied to its own part of England's 2024 total and then scaled up to the UK in the same way.
- Construction waste follows building work. Construction, demolition and excavation waste, 66.4% of the total, moves with ONS's construction output index. The index averaged 98.7 from January to July 2026 against 100.0 in 2024, a fall of 1.3%.
- Everything else grows with the population. Business, household and other waste moves with the UK population, kept at its 2024 amount per person. The UK grew 0.33% in the year to mid-2025 in ONS's mid-2025 population estimates, and that pace is assumed to hold to mid-2026.
Together they give 208.0 million tonnes for 2026, 0.7% less than the 2024 estimate and 8.6% more than the 191.5 million tonnes measured in 2020.
The same two assumptions were tested on every two-year step Defra has measured. On the UK total from 2010 to 2020 they landed between 1.6% too low and 7.3% too high, and on England's total up to 2024 between 5.1% too low and 9.0% too high.
Holding construction waste flat instead missed by as much as 16.3%, which is why it follows building work rather than staying at its 2024 level.
How wide the 2026 range is
At the low end, the 2026 figure is cut by 9.0%, the most the method overshot in any measured step (England, 2022 to 2024), which gives 189 million tonnes.
At the high end, it is raised by 5.1%, the most the method fell short (England, 2020 to 2022), which gives 219 million tonnes. The method landed too high in nine of its twelve tests, so the real figure is more likely to sit below 208 million tonnes than above it.
Who handles waste in the UK?
Waste policy in the UK is devolved, so England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each run their own collections, targets and statistics. Defra pulls them together into the UK figures on this page.
Four parts of the system shape the numbers above:
- Councils. Local authorities collect household waste and report what they collect, which is where the household figures come from.
- The regulators. The Environment Agency, SEPA, Natural Resources Wales and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency permit waste sites and register packaging producers.
- Businesses. Commercial, industrial and construction waste is handled privately, so those figures are estimated from waste site returns and other sources rather than counted at the kerb.
- Packaging producers. Since 2025 large producers pay for household packaging waste through one UK-wide scheme run by PackUK.
Why the UK's total is mostly rubble and soil
England is the only part of the UK with a split for 2024, and it covers about 85% of the national total. The table sorts England's 2024 waste by who generated it.
| Source | Waste in 2024 (tonnes) | Share of the total |
|---|---|---|
| Construction demolition and excavation | 118.2 million | 66.4% |
| Businesses and industry | 30.8 million | 17.3% |
| Households | 21.9 million | 12.3% |
| Mining farming forestry and fishing | 7.1 million | 4.0% |
Note: Defra's figures for England, 2024 reference year, provisional. Construction includes dredging, and the four sources add up to 178.1 million tonnes.
By material, the same pile is mostly the ground itself. Rubble from building and demolition came to 61.0 million tonnes and excavated soil to 48.1 million, together 61.3% of everything England generated in 2024.
Most of that is not lost. On provisional figures England recovered 95.3% of its non-hazardous construction and demolition waste in 2024. Landfill took 37.5 million tonnes of England's waste of all kinds that year, 21.1% of everything treated.
What British households throw out
UK households generated 26.2 million tonnes of waste in 2024, about 377 kg per person, and 44.5% of it was recycled. The rate has barely moved in recent years and stood at 46.0% in 2019.
Wales recycled the most at 58.6%, followed by Northern Ireland at 50.1%, England at 43.8% and Scotland at 42.7%. This is the UK's own household measure, which is narrower than the EU's municipal waste figure, so it does not line up with EU averages.
The slice UK producers pay for
Packaging is the part of the pile that extended producer responsibility covers, and the part a company selling into the UK pays for directly.
The UK generated 11.1 million tonnes of packaging waste in 2024, or 161 kg per person, and recycled 73.2% of it. Paper and cardboard made up the largest share by weight.
| Material | Packaging waste in 2024 (tonnes) | Share recycled |
|---|---|---|
| Paper and cardboard | 4,838,000 | 84.1% |
| Glass | 2,223,000 | 79.1% |
| Plastic | 2,156,000 | 53.5% |
| Wood | 1,228,000 | 51.7% |
| Metal | 682,000 | 78.7% |
Note: Defra's UK statistics on waste, 2024 reference year. Packaging waste is counted as the packaging producers reported placing on the UK market, and 18,000 tonnes of other materials make up the rest of the 11,145,000-tonne total.
What changed in 2025
Defra's provisional figures for 2025 put the overall rate at 70.5%, down from 73.2%. Paper and cardboard fell to 80.3%, glass to 75.1% and wood to 43.7%, while plastic rose to 57.3%.
The 2025 figures will still move. Defra takes them from producers' own reports, and late or corrected submissions changed the 2024 rates after they were first published.
Who pays for it?
Packaging EPR came into force across the UK on 1 January 2025. Producers register with their regulator and report what they place on the market through the Report Packaging Data service, and PackUK invoiced the first fees from October 2025.
Large producers also fund recycling by buying packaging recovery notes. What a producer has to register for is set out in the EPR duties for selling into the UK, and the packaging rules in detail on packaging EPR in the UK.
Drinks containers come next. A deposit return scheme starts on 1 October 2027 in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and Wales runs its own scheme from the same date with glass included.
How the UK measures up to its packaging targets
The UK's recycling targets are set in its 2024 packaging regulations and rise every year to 2030. The table sets the 2025 and 2030 targets against Defra's provisional rates for 2025.
| Packaging | Target for 2025 then 2030 | UK rate in 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Paper and cardboard | 75% then 85% | 80.3% |
| Glass | 74% then 85% | 75.1% |
| Steel | 80% then 85% | 88.5% |
| Aluminium | 61% then 67% | 61.1% |
| Plastic | 55% then 65% | 57.3% |
| Wood | 45% then 50% | 43.7% |
Note: Schedule 5 of the UK's 2024 packaging regulations. The targets are obligations on producers rather than national rates, and Defra works its rates out on same-year data, so the comparison is a guide rather than a pass or fail.
On the provisional 2025 figures the UK was above five of the six targets set for that year. Wood was the exception, at 43.7% against 45%, and aluminium cleared its target by 0.1 points.
Against the 2030 targets only steel is already there. The other five are short by these amounts:
- Glass. 9.9 points.
- Plastic. 7.7 points.
- Wood. 6.3 points.
- Aluminium. 5.9 points.
- Paper and cardboard. 4.7 points.
Producers meet these targets through the packaging data they file and the recycling evidence they buy. Those comparing the tools that prepare Report Packaging Data submissions can start with the EPR software built for UK packaging.
Frequently asked questions about the UK's waste
Below are the eight questions that come up most often about the UK's waste figures.
How much waste does the UK produce each year?
The UK generates an estimated 208 million tonnes of waste in 2026, moved on from its 2024 estimate by building activity and population. The newest UK-wide measurement, for 2020, was 191.5 million tonnes, and England alone generated 178.1 million tonnes in 2024.
Can the UK's waste be compared with other countries?
Only with care. The UK's figures come from Defra rather than Eurostat, and countries differ in how they count commercial and household waste, so part of any gap between the UK and another country is counting practice rather than rubbish.
Why is the newest UK-wide figure from 2020?
Defra has measured England's total up to 2024 but has not published a UK-wide total since 2020. That 2020 figure also leans on Scotland's 2018 data after a cyber-attack, so this page estimates 2024 and 2026 from England's figures.
Why is most of the UK's waste rubble and soil?
Because the national total counts everything dug up and knocked down on building sites. In England, construction, demolition and excavation produced 66.4% of the 2024 total, and rubble and excavated soil alone came to 109.2 million tonnes.
How much of UK household waste is recycled?
UK households recycled 44.5% of their waste in 2024, on Defra's harmonised measure. Wales had the highest rate at 58.6%, followed by Northern Ireland at 50.1%, England at 43.8% and Scotland at 42.7%.
How much packaging waste does the UK generate?
The UK generated 11.1 million tonnes of packaging waste in 2024, about 161 kg per person, and recycled 73.2% of it. Provisional figures for 2025 show 11.1 million tonnes again, with 70.5% recycled.
Does the UK meet its packaging recycling targets?
On Defra's provisional 2025 figures the UK was above five of its six material targets for 2025, with wood the exception at 43.7% against 45%. Only steel had already reached its 2030 target.
When does the UK deposit return scheme start?
On 1 October 2027. England, Scotland and Northern Ireland are covered by schemes run by one organisation for plastic bottles and drinks cans, and Wales runs its own from the same date with glass bottles included.
Images: Malcolm Neal
