Waste generation in the service industry sector in Norway 1999

Waste statistics for the service industries in Norway has up to now consisted of indirect and shaky estimates in the Norwegian waste accounts. This project was designed to extend the Norwegian waste statistics with an important industrial sector. At the same time, we wanted to exploit a hitherto unused source for statistical data: The database of a large, private recycling enterprise.

Data from Norway's largest recycling enterprise, Norsk Gjenvinning AS, were obtained and national waste statistics for the Service Industries in Norway 1999 were estimated therefrom.

The sample initially contained detailed waste data for 10 500 establishments. Large parts of the initial sample had to be excluded, however, due to insufficient establishment identification (often only by informal names), risk of double counting (establishments delivering waste produced by other establishments) or because the actual establishments appeared to have initiated or terminated their customership with Norsk Gjenvinning during the year so that the data did not reflect a whole year's waste generation. After this extensive exclusion process, a final sample of 1189 establishments remained, constituting only 0,7 per cent of the total number of establishments in the service industry sector, but representing 3,4 per cent of the total number of employees. Out of these, two establishments showed such an extreme waste generation that they were singled out from the sample and given weight 1. The rest of the sample was inflated to national figures with employment statistics as auxiliary.

Inspection of the data suggested a two-termed model with one (small) constant and one (large) employmentdependent term.

The sample was divided into seven NACE groups, not two-digit groups as originally intended. This reduced splittingup was chosen in order to have sufficiently large sample for each NACE group.

With this method, it was estimated that the service industries in Norway generated 767 000 tonnes of waste in 1999, of which 37 per cent was paper and 43 per cent was mixed waste. The material composition of the mixed waste has been estimated. The main results correspond well with estimates in the waste accounts for Norway

Acknowledgement: We thank Eurostat for financial support, and Norsk Gjennvinning for access to their data register and kind cooperation throughout the project.