Sound waste management and optimisation of resource recovery require reliable data on solid waste generation and composition. In the absence of standardised and commonly accepted waste characterisation methodologies, various approaches have been reported in literature. This limits both comparability and applicability of the results. In this study, a waste sampling and sorting methodology for efficient and
statistically robust characterisation of solid waste was introduced. The methodology was applied to residual waste collected from 1442 households distributed among 10 individual sub-areas in three Danish municipalities (both single and multi-family house areas). In total 17 tonnes of waste were sorted into 10–50 waste fractions, organised according to a three-level (tiered approach) facilitating comparison
of the waste data between individual sub-areas with different fractionation (waste from one municipality was sorted at ‘‘Level III’’, e.g. detailed, while the two others were sorted only at ‘‘Level I’’). The results showed that residual household waste mainly contained food waste (42 ± 5%, mass per wet basis) and miscellaneous combustibles (18 ± 3%, mass per wet basis).