South America Waste Data Explorer

Explore municipal solid waste (MSW) indicators across South American countries using the World Bank’s What a Waste 2.0 database, with supporting context from UN urbanisation estimates (WUP 2025) and World Bank income-group classifications.

This explorer is built for fast comparison. Start broad with All countries to see region-wide patterns, then filter by income group or choose a country to compare against benchmark averages.

How to use this explorer

• Step 1: Choose an Income group (or keep All income groups).
• Step 2: Choose a Country (or select All countries).
• Step 3: Use the charts to compare the selected view to the income-group average and South America average.
• Download CSV: Export the filtered dataset you’re currently viewing.

Use this in reporting

If you’re writing about recycling rates, landfill reliance, open dumping, organics diversion, packaging waste, or the future of municipal waste systems, this page is designed to provide fast, source-linked context — including when the underlying data is incomplete.

Note: Waste composition and treatment shares do not always add up to 100% in the source data. Where totals fall short, the remainder may appear as Unspecified / not reported, or some charts may be normalised to 100% for readability.

Explorer

Tip: Start with All income groups → All countries for a baseline, then narrow down.

What to look for

1) Total waste vs. waste per person

Total MSW is often dominated by high-population countries, while per-capita rankings can elevate smaller economies, dense city-states, and tourism-heavy places. Both views matter — they answer different questions.

2) Composition can act like a roadmap

A high organic share can point to opportunities for organics diversion, such as composting and anaerobic digestion. Rising plastic and paper shares often reflect shifts in packaging and consumption patterns.

3) Treatment outcomes reflect capacity

Recycling rates, landfill usage, and open dumping shares tend to track infrastructure, enforcement, operational funding, and long-term maintenance. In some contexts, the biggest improvements come from basic service reliability and safe disposal.

4) Data gaps are part of the story

If a country shows blank segments or a large Unspecified / not reported component, that often indicates measurement gaps or inconsistent reporting — not necessarily that “nothing is happening.”

Definitions

Income groups: Countries are grouped using the World Bank’s income classification (each country belongs to one income group).

Missing values: Blank values are preserved as missing and not imputed. Shares may not sum to 100% where the source data is incomplete.

Sources

• World Bank: What a Waste 2.0 (overview)
• World Bank Data Catalog: What a Waste 2.0 download
• UN DESA: World Urbanization Prospects (WUP 2025)
• World Bank: Country and Lending Groups (income classifications)

This explorer will improve over time as datasets are updated and reporting becomes more consistent across countries.