Waste truck
(BRUSSELS) – Eighteen EU Member States are at risk of not meeting ‘re-use and recycling’ targets for municipal and all packaging waste, the EU Commission said in a report published Thursday.
In its Waste Early Warning Report, the Commission presents a number of recommendations to the states, building on continuous financial and technical support provided for improving performance on waste management.
The EU executive lists nine Member States that are on track to meet the 2025 targets: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia.
Of the 18 Member States at risk of missing one or both of the 2025 targets Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal, Spain and Sweden are at risk of missing the municipal waste target. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are at risk of missing both the targets for municipal and overall packaging waste for 2025.
Some countries also continue to landfill most of their municipal waste and will probably fail to meet the 2035 landfilling target. The Commissions has presented recommendations to these Member States, building on continuous financial and technical support provided for improving performance on waste management.
The report points to significant differences in waste management performance across the EU. For some countries, there is still a long way to go to meet the targets agreed in EU legislation and more reforms are needed, notably: to ensure biowaste treatment, which represents a third of municipal waste; separate collection of waste – a prerequisite to recycling; and improve data quality. However, most EU countries have or are in the process of putting place waste reforms to improve recycling rates, some of which should yield results in the coming years.
External factors also influenced performance, including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic which reduced or halted separate collection in some countries. The recent spike in energy prices is also adversely affecting recycling activities.
The Commission’s recommendations for the 18 Member States that are at risk of not achieving the main 2025 recycling targets cover a broad range of actions: reducing non-recyclable waste, increasing reuse, boosting separate collection, developing waste treatment capacities for sorting and recycling, improving governance, deploying economic instruments and awareness-raising.
Each year, Europeans generate on average 530kg of municipal waste per person (waste coming from households and similar waste from businesses). Although it is increasingly recycled and less landfilled, municipal waste remains one of the most complex waste streams to manage. In the EU, about 50% of municipal waste is recycled or composted and 23% is landfilled. The amount of packaging waste generated has been steadily on the rise. Between 2013 and 2020 the amount of generated packaging waste grew by 15% across the EU, reaching nearly 80 million tonnes. Around 64% of packaging waste is now recycled, although this varies by material. More than 75% of paper, cardboard and metal packaging is recycled, compared to less than 40% of plastics – a problem in most EU countries, many of which are at risk of not meeting the material-specific target for the recycling of plastic packaging waste.
Factsheets for each Member State
EEA briefing and country assessments
