Disposable cups for coffee breaks, packaging for online purchases, water bottles… Europeans have never produced so much packaging waste. According to a report published on Thursday October 19 by Eurostat, the European Union produced 188.7 kg per inhabitant in 2021, which is 10.8 kg more per person compared to 2020. This is the strongest increase in ten years and almost 32 kg more than in 2011, reminds the European Statistical Office. The publication of this data comes as battle rages in the European Parliament ahead of the Environment Committee’s vote on the packaging regulation on Tuesday 24 October.
In total, Europeans produced 84 million tons of packaging waste in 2021. There are big differences depending on the country. The Croatians are the most sober with 73.8 kg per capita and the Irish are the largest producers with 246.1 kg per capita. The French weigh above average (almost 200 kg).
This time, if you look at the breakdown by material, paper and cardboard are clearly ahead with 40.3% of the total amount of waste produced in Europe. Although plastic is the lightest packaging, it comes in second (19%), just ahead of glass (18.5%), which is much heavier. This is followed by wood (17.1%) and metal (4.9%).
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Is this the effect of plastic dissatisfaction? Eurostat explains that the record increase between 2020 and 2021 (+ 6%) was “mainly” due to that of wooden packaging. The volume of boxes, crates, cartons, baskets and other cartons increased by 19%. Cardboard and paper, increasingly used to replace plastic in food, rose 3.9%.
“High ambition”
Plastic, which is the subject of international negotiations on an agreement to limit the pollution it causes, also increased by 3.9%, an increase of 1.4 kg per inhabitant. This means that each European produced an average of 35.9 kg of plastic packaging in 2021. A value that has increased by 26.7% in ten years, which corresponds to an increase of 7.6 kg per inhabitant. At the same time, the amount of recycled plastic packaging increased by 38.1% (+ 3.9 kg per capita).
There are also big differences in performance from country to country when it comes to recycling. Slovenia is the country that recycles the most with a rate of 50%, ahead of Belgium (49.2%) and the Netherlands (48.9%). At 23%, France is among the bottom performers. Only Denmark (22.9%) and Malta (20.5%) perform worse. Paris, which nevertheless defends an “ambitious” text that envisages an end to plastic pollution by 2040 as part of the negotiations on an international agreement on plastics, is thus far from the target set by the EU: to achieve at least 50% recycled plastics by 2025.
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