Wales’ ambition for 2050 is zero waste.

Waste management is an important and complex issue that covers a range of different but related approaches.

• Preventing the production of waste, or preparing waste for reuse, has much greater environmental benefit than recycling,
• Recycling has a greater environmental benefit than other forms of recovery such as energy from waste,
• At the very bottom of the scale, with few environmental benefits, is disposal by means that recovers no energy, for example sending waste to landfill.

We looked at how we manage our waste in Wales, across a set of three related pieces of work.