Skip to content

Waste collection, recovery and disposal activities

NACE 38120 · division 38 Waste collection and treatment
Current registrations 30division 38: 1,627
Starters, 12 months 13.3 per 100 · Belgium 8.9
Employment (FTE) 5407 employers · latest accounts
Median age 6.9 yearsBelgium 8.1 years
E-invoicing via Peppol 93.3%28 of 30 companies in the Peppol Directory · Belgium 85.0%

No bankruptcy in the past twelve months.

Bankruptcies

Bankruptcies, 5 years, still registered
1
3.33% of the registrations · Belgium 1.68%
Running bankruptcies
1
33.3 per 1,000 registrations

Recent bankruptcies

Date Company
25-09-2023 OMICA GROUPS
BE 0649.821.113

Every bankruptcy in division 38, last 90 days

Spread across the country

by region and province · 26 of 30 enterprises with a registered office on file · a sole trader has no published seat
  • Flanders 17 · 65.4%
  • Wallonia 7 · 26.9%
  • Brussels 1 · 3.8%
  • Abroad 1 · 3.8%
fewer moremax 8

The balance sheets of division 38 on the map, by municipality and down to the address

Largest employers

NACE 38120 as first main activity · staff from the latest accounts
  1. 1 Veolia Environmental Services WallonieGrâce-Hollogne 508 FTEfinancial year 2025
  2. 2 Scandinavian Oil Services blending & logisticsAntwerp 10.2 FTEfinancial year 2025
  3. 3 Watt4everTienen 7.6 FTEfinancial year 2025
  4. 4 OMICA GROUPSTournai 6.1 FTEfinancial year 2018
  5. 5 RECUPBATAntwerp 3.8 FTEfinancial year 2024

Companies

30 with this main activity

Joint committees

from the latest accounts of 7 companies
  • 121 Cleaning 3
  • 124 Construction 2
  • 142.04 Recovery of raw materials 2
  • 200 Auxiliary committee for white-collar workers 2
  • 100 Auxiliary committee for blue-collar workers 1
  • 116 Chemical industry 1
  • 140 Transport and logistics 1
  • 140.03 Road transport and logistics for third parties 1
Show the 2 others
  • 142.03 Recovery of raw materials 1
  • 207 White-collar workers in the chemical industry 1

Source: the annual accounts at the National Bank. One filing can name more than one committee.

Division 38: Waste collection and treatment

Related activities

1 other activity
Activity Registrations Starters, 12 months Bankruptcies, 12 months FTE
Waste collection, recovery and disposal activities38110 391 58 5 2,870

Filed accounts of the division

NACE division 38 · financial year 2025 · 968 filed annual accounts
Median solvency
38.8%
Belgium 46.1%
Median net result
€33,112
Belgium €16,500
Median equity
€621,984
Belgium €98,350
Loss-making
29.3%
Belgium 26.7%
Negative equity
10.4%
Belgium 12.4%
Median return on equity
8.8%
Belgium 15.9%
Median liquidity
1.43
Belgium 1.66
Filed late
32.3%
financial year 2024, 765 filings · Belgium 38.4%
Missing or 90 days late
4.8%
of 1,055 companies with annual accounts · Belgium 5.4%
Per financial year20182019202020212022202320242025
Median solvency --35.9%37.0%36.8%38.2%38.2%37.8%
Median net result --€46,654€69,295€53,788€40,846€31,046€24,345
Filed late 29.0%37.0%36.6%33.8%32.1%32.0%32.3%-

Hold your customer's or competitor's figures against them in the Sector benchmark

Bankruptcies per year in division 38

Per year201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026
Bankruptcies16191310151113818142012
Jobs lost29933110262823844533845

2026 through June. Every bankruptcy, also of companies that have since left the register. Source: Statbel (Directorate-General Statistics), NACE classification of 2008.

Staff cost per FTE in NACE division 38

379 employers
Median
€67,800
Belgium €61,400
Middle half
€56,100 to €80,600
half of the employers lie between
Place among sectors
33 of 78
sectors with a median staff cost per FTE, highest first
By size class
SizeMedianMiddle halfEmployers
fewer than 10 FTE €63,000 €52,400 to €76,100 172
10 to 49 FTE €70,300 €57,600 to €81,600 143
50 to 249 FTE €72,600 €67,100 to €87,700 50

Employers with the highest staff cost per FTE in this division All sectors by staff cost In the Analysis workbench

Foreign control in NACE division 38

984 registered companies
Companies with a foreign parent
2.0%
20 of 984; Belgium 0.3%
Staff at those companies
13%
2,222 of 16,584 FTE; Belgium 14%

Main parent countries: Netherlands (11), France (2) and Australia (1).Show on the map by municipality

Subsidies in this sector

per register · legal entities with an enterprise number
  • Flemish subsidies €79.2m awarded 251 recipients · 2022 to 2025 · largest: Subsidies investeringen materialenbeheer lokale besturen
  • Federal transfers 143.3m amount as published 9 recipients · 2023 to 2025 · largest: Subsidie aan het IRE voor de verwerking van
  • Wallonia-Brussels Federation €498,572 paid 2 recipients · 2023 to 2025 · largest: Subventions aux associations reconnues à durée indéterminée dans le cadre du décret du 17 juillet 2003
  • EU budget €28.0m attributed share 17 recipients · 2021 to 2025 · largest: Innovation Fund
  • EU research €17.7m EU contribution 31 recipients · 2009 to 2026 · largest: Horizon Europe

Explore every recipient in this sector

Insights on Waste collection, recovery and disposal activities

Inflow and structure. 13.3% of the companies are sole traders, against 41.6% in Belgium. Half of the companies are younger than 6.9 years, against 8.1 years in Belgium. This activity holds 1.8% of the registrations of Waste collection and treatment.

Staff and filing. The 5 largest employers hold 536 of the 540 FTE: 99.3%.

The comparison with Belgium as a whole and with the other divisions is as of 08-11-2026 05:30.

Method and sources

Every company registered today counts under its main activities in the KBO. Establishment units do not count. Staff counts once, under the employer's first main activity, from its latest accounts and only where it fits the staff costs. The count follows the NACE 2025 classification, the version in which code 38120 exists.

The bankruptcies over five years count only companies still registered today, because the activity of a company that left the register is not kept. So they are fewer than the bankruptcies of those years, and the figure is not a probability for the future. Over twelve months the count is nearly complete, because a bankrupt company stays registered while its bankruptcy runs. A company with more than one main activity counts in each of those sectors.

The comparison with Belgium as a whole and with the other NACE divisions rests on an overview of every division, counted again each night. Each division is counted in the version of the NACE classification in which it exists. A standing such as "more than in 80%" compares with the other divisions that have the figure. A division's bankruptcy probability is the median over its companies with a score. Belgium here counts the 1,276,474 companies with a main activity, because only those belong to a division. The other 699,509 registrations publish no activity.

For NACE 38120, 18 annual accounts of financial year 2025 were filed. That is too few for a median, which needs at least 30.

We would like to set cookies. That happens only with your consent. What we measure