Waste is part of everyday life, from food packaging and household rubbish to construction materials and discarded products. However, understanding how much waste is generated, which materials contribute most, and what happens to waste after collection is important for improving resource recovery and waste management.
This report explores Australia’s reported waste using the Australian Government’s National Waste and Resource Recovery Report 2026 database. Five interactive visualisations examine changes over time, material categories, waste outcomes, changes in waste composition, and differences between Australian jurisdictions.
The central question is: How has Australia’s reported waste changed, which materials contribute most, and how is waste managed?
The dataset was obtained from the Australian Government’s National Waste and Resource Recovery Report 2026 database. The Excel database contains reported waste information across financial years, jurisdictions, material categories, waste types, management methods and waste outcomes.
The analysis uses records marked as being within the headline scope. Where categories and waste types are reported separately, they are analysed separately to avoid adding different levels of aggregation together.
## [1] 25260 11## [1] "Year" "Jurisdiction" "Category" "Type"
## [5] "Source stream" "Management" "Fate" "Tonnes"
## [9] "Headline scope?" "Core waste?" "Classification"## # A tibble: 6 × 11
## Year Jurisdiction Category Type `Source stream` Management Fate Tonnes
## <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <dbl>
## 1 2024–25 ACT Building a… Asph… C&D Recycling Recy… 2.96e4
## 2 2024–25 ACT Building a… Bric… C&D Recycling Recy… 2.13e5
## 3 2024–25 ACT Building a… Cera… C&D Recycling Recy… 5.12e2
## 4 2024–25 ACT Building a… Plas… C&D Recycling Recy… 8.59e1
## 5 2024–25 ACT Building a… Rubb… C&D Recycling Recy… 8.78e4
## 6 2024–25 ACT Building a… Soil… C&D Recycling Recy… 7.54e4
## # ℹ 3 more variables: `Headline scope?` <chr>, `Core waste?` <chr>,
## # Classification <chr>This chart allows readers to explore changes in reported waste across financial years and identify periods of increase or decrease.
The horizontal bars make it easier to compare the reported quantities across material categories and identify which categories contribute the most.
This chart compares the recorded outcomes of the included waste records. The proportions describe this analysis and should not automatically be interpreted as an official national recycling rate.
The stacked area chart shows how the reported quantities of different material categories change over time. Readers can use the legend to focus on selected categories.