Household Waste by Type in 2005 and 2025

The question

How to approach this pie chart question

Pie charts show proportions of a whole. With two pies, the task is to describe how the shares changed or differ.

1. Say what the whole is and what the percentages measure.
2. Overview: the biggest share and the main shift between charts.
3. Compare the largest slices first, then the smallest.
4. Use fractions and percentages (just over a third, roughly 20%).

How to plan this answer

Structure

1. Introduction: paraphrase that two pie charts show the proportions of six types of household waste in Country A in 2005 and 2025.
2. Overview: food waste is the largest category in both years, but the biggest shifts are paper and card falling and garden waste rising to second place.
3. Body paragraph 1: the 2005 composition, from food waste (28%) to glass (9%), with the position of each category.
4. Body paragraph 2: the 2025 composition and the changes, highlighting the rise in garden waste and plastics and the fall in paper and card.

Key features to spot

• Food waste is the largest category in both years, but its share falls from 28% to 24%.
• Paper and card falls most sharply, from 22% to 15%, dropping from second place to fourth.
• Garden waste rises from 17% to 22%, overtaking paper and card to become the second-largest category in 2025.
• Plastics rise from 14% to 17%, moving above paper and card. Glass is the smallest category in 2025 at 8%.
• Food and garden waste together account for 45% in 2005 and 46% in 2025, so their combined share barely changes.
• Changes in shares should be given in percentage points, not as percentages of the original figure.

Useful vocabulary

• accounted for: Food waste accounted for 28% of household waste in 2005.
• percentage points: Paper and card fell by 7 percentage points.
• overtook: Garden waste overtook paper and card to become the second-largest category.
• dropped sharply from ... to ...: The share of paper and card dropped sharply from 22% to 15%.
• the largest share: Food waste retained the largest share in both years.
• rose marginally: The category labelled 'Other' rose marginally, from 10% to 14%.
• remained the largest category: Food waste remained the largest category throughout.
• proportion: The proportion of plastics in household waste increased over the period.

Common mistakes

• Describing the fall in paper and card as '7%' rather than 7 percentage points, which misstates the change.
• Missing the rank change, so the reader does not see that paper and card slipped from second place to fourth.
• Calling food waste's fall 'large' when it is 4 points, while the bigger movers are paper and card and garden waste.
• Ignoring the 'Other' category or omitting the smaller categories without grouping them.
• Speculating about why households changed their waste habits, which the prompt does not allow.

Examiner tip: Name the largest category in each year in the overview, then describe the biggest rises and falls. Track rank changes as well as the percentages.