The total amount of municipal waste generated in the European Union was close to 200 million tons in 2000. The amount of construction/demolition waste represents an additional 400 million tons. Plastics waste represented about 20 million tons in total. The amount of PVC waste arising in 2000 was estimated to be less than 3 million tons, hence it represents only 0.5 % of the total amount of waste.
Plastics represent around 9 % by weight of the total amount of Municipal Solid Waste generated in Western Europe. PVC represents 7 % of this plastic waste, hence around 0.6 % of the MSW.
PVC therefore does not contribute significantly to the “mountains of waste”, the more so as PVC products have a comparatively high density and usage of PVC in high volume/weight applications (bottles, other packaging) is limited.
