Biodegradable Municipal Waste

Biodegradable Municipal Waste (BMW) is the fraction of Municipal Waste that will degrade within a landfill, giving rise to landfill gas emissions, primarily methane.  It includes, amongst other materials, food waste, green waste, paper and cardboard.

Targets for BMW permitted to landfill

The Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC) aims to reduce, as far as possible, the negative effects of landfilling waste. It sets targets and timescales for reducing the amount of BMW sent to landfill and from this the UK government has identified the maximum amount of BMW that the UK can landfill for certain target years up to 2019/2020. A proportion of these targets have been allocated to Scotland. Following discussion between the UK Government and the Commission concerning the scope of the UK definition of Municipal Waste and measurement of compliance against the Landfill Directive, agreement was reached to revise the 1995 baseline and targets.

The Waste Data Digest provides updated figures on an annual basis to monitor progress towards these targets.