Chile’s waste problem has deepened in step with demographic and consumption growth. The population reached ≈ 19.9 million in 2025 — up from roughly 15 million in 2000.
Annual generation of solid waste now stands at around 7.9 million tonnes. Despite this volume, recycling rates remain minimal: roughly 2% of all waste is recycled.
Plastic emerges as a particularly problematic stream. Consumption is high and plastic waste accounts for a large share of municipal refuse; Chile is now among the top countries per capita in plastic waste generation.
These dynamics reflect increased incomes and mass consumption of packaged goods, which — combined with urbanisation and population growth — have sharply expanded waste generation.
The result is a growing environmental challenge: under-capacity recycling infrastructure, limited material recovery, and continuing reliance on landfills. Meanwhile, waste management remains largely focused on disposal rather than circular-economy practices.
In this context, Chile faces a critical challenge: without a decisive shift towards more aggressive recycling, reuse and circular-economy policies, the growing volume of waste threatens not only the environment, but also urban quality of life and the long-term sustainability of consumption.
Historically, the country has focused on the appropriate final disposal of waste through sanitary landfill. Although landfill regulation has improved and the number of dumping sites reduced, the environmental problems generated by the hoarding of solid waste in landfills persist. Effects such as GHG emissions, water pollution, land erosion, and the rapid filling of the landfills, have shown that concentrating efforts on sanitary final disposal is not enough.
In 2020 it was estimated that 4.4 million tons of waste was generated, and that only 20% of the total waste produced was recycled. These waste dumps are the second biggest generator of methane in the country, and overall waste management produces nearly 5% of the national ghg emissions. As of 2025: Chile now generates ≈ 19.6 million tonnes of waste annually and only about 20.9 % is recycled. Waste management — especially disposal in landfills — remains a major source of methane emissions, contributing significantly to national greenhouse-gas emissions.
The environment ministry (MMA) is responsible for promoting reform in the circular economy, and for defining and policing the laws and regulations relating to waste management. It currently has many initiatives to encourage recycling and good practice. One of the most significant additions to the environmental laws recently was the introduction of the law of extended responsibility of the producer, known in Spanish as the Ley REP. In very simple terms it is an economic instrument that obliges producers of certain products to finance the disposal of their wastes in a sustainable way.
