Europe – new study compiles existing knowledge of recycling rates for eight materials

The European Environment Agency‘‘s Topic Centre on Waste and Material Flows has published a useful report Inventory of existing information on recycling of selected material flows. The study was carried out in support of the preparation of the EU Thematic Strategy on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste.



The Topic Centre has processed data from the EU (Member State data reported under the Packaging Directive), Eurostat and the World Bank together with data from the Centre´s own internet database Wastebase, as well as data from trade organisations and NGOs. The result is an overview of consumption and waste treatment patterns in Europe (mainly the former EU-15 plus Norway and Switzerland) for eight different materials:

Slow but steady increase in plastics recycling since the mid-90s



In spite of increased recycling levels over the last years, plastics recycling remains considerably lower than recycling levels for other materials. In the former EU-15 + Norway and Switzerland every citizen is responsible for the consumption of, on average, 95 kilos of plastics each year. The per capita consumption has increased from 64 kilos per year in 1990.



Recycling levels have increased as well – steadily but slowly – from 7% in 1990 to 15% in 2002. The amounts managed by energy recovery have increased slightly, and disposal rates have decreased. Disposal, however, still accounts for 62% of the treatment of plastics waste. In spite of the increase over the last decade, plastics recycling remains considerably lower than recycling levels for other materials. Plastics recycling is undoubtedly restrained by a variety of barriers, for example the fact that there are so many different types of plastic. To achieve ideal material recycling, the different types must at some point be separated.



More than half of Europe´s metal packaging waste is recycled



Metal recycling has increased, but data for other fractions than packaging are still lacking. The recycling of metal packaging waste has increased by approximately 30 percentage points over a decade from the early 1990s and onwards. In other words: it has more than doubled to reach 55% today. Accordingly, the disposal rate has decreased considerably from 74% in 1992 to 45% in 2001.



The EU average recycling rate of 55% covers a very large span of recycling levels in the various countries. The highest levels are found in Germany and Belgium, where around 80% of all metal packaging material is recycled.



Packaging constitutes a rather small share of total metal consumption. For aluminium the share is 18%, while for steel it is only 3%. However, available data on packaging are by far the most comprehensive, because of the data reporting obligations under the Packaging Directive. We know little about recycling of other metal waste fractions. We do know, however, that around 60% of the overall aluminium consumption takes place in the car industry and in the construction sector and that approximately 95% of the aluminium consumed in these two sectors is recycled.