Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge

Deputy Directorate-general for Waste

Plaza San Juan de la Cruz 

nº10 CP 28071 Madrid

SPAIN

22 August 2025

22 August 2025

22 August 2025

We are reporting in accordance with the new calculation rules, but table 1a is reported with the old methodology.

Table : Institutions involved in the collection of data and distribution of tasks

The classification for treatment operations established in Annexes I and II of Directive 2008/98/EC is used. The most relevant categories used are: D1, D10, R1, R3, R4, R5.

The classification for treatment operations established in Annexes I and II of Directive 2008/98/EC is used. The most relevant categories used are: D1, D10, R1, R3, R4, R5

All packaging and packaging waste, regardless of the material used

Spain wishes to take into account the amount of wooden packaging that is repaired for reuse. In this regard the "repair" cell in table 1 has been filled.

No information for the time being about details on the types of reuse system in place for each main material type.

100% of the reported Energy Recovery comes from R1 incinerators.

No information for the time being.

For some materials, the producers are producers of empty packaging (e.g., industrial product survey in the case of plastics); for others they are producers of packaged products (e.g., information from registry of producers); and in other importers and exporters of empty and filled packaging.

For place on the market approach: all economic operators provide data of total packaged products (sometimes estimating via empty packing) on the national market for the first time through PROs, material entities or directly by producers via the Register of Producers of Product.

Waste analaysis approach doesn't apply.

For treatment: depending on the PROs and material entities the information comes from treatment plants treating nationally generated packaging waste or from sorting plants.

Spain.

1 year.

2023

Tonnes.

Calendar year

• Royal Decree 1055/2022, of December 27, on packaging and packaging waste;
• Law 7/2022, of April 8, 2002, on waste and contaminated soils for a circular economy;
• In addition, each autonomous community has its own implementing regulations.

Certain information could be directily downloaded from the National Registry of Producers of Product or from the public website of the National Institute of Statistics. 

Statistics on packaging and packaging waste are in accordance with the Commission Decision 2005/270/EC.

European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Annual.

No press releases available.

Spain publish yearly some aggregated data on the website of the Ministry:

• Annual report on waste generation and management
• Generation and Management of Packaging Waste in Spain. Memoria anual de generación y gestión de residuos.

No information available.

No information available.

No references available.

No references available.

No documentation available.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

In the past Spain faced some traceability problem which was intend to be solved in the Royal Decree 1055/2022 published in 2022 by way of creating the packaging section in the Register of producers of product. In this way it is possible to know at first-hand the information on packaging Placed on the market. However, 2023 is only the second year that the producer register has been used, so caution is still required in this regard.

On the other hand, information of recycling is provided both by recyclers and PROs, depending on the material. In the short to medium term, the information from recyclers will be directly used and it would be possible to cross chech this information with the one provided by PROs.

Data for reusable packaging is provisional at the moment, given that until now producers have not had a legal obligation to report reusable packaging information and there is still a lot of confusion among producers about what they should declare and how. However, the data from Register of Producers was used for the second time to report the reuse packaging figures ​​for 2023. Throughout this last year, 2024-2025, active work has been done on the purification of information reported by producers, as well as as in detection and correction of errors. However, it should be taken into account that the registry is in the early stages of its setting up.

The information in this section is to provide an overarching understanding of the accuracy of any statistical surveys used relating to packaging waste. Some of the information may be available in previous questions.

The Ministry does not conduct any survey in this regard. However, some PROs or material entities whose data are used for this reporting, used some type of surveys (conducted by themselves or by the the National Statistical Institute. In any case, Spain doesn't have the level of detail by which it is asked in this section. 

No information available with this level of detail

The information in this section is to provide an overarching understanding of the accuracy of any statistical surveys used relating to packaging waste. Some of the information may be available in other concepts.

The information on reusable packaging comes entirely from the Register of Producers of Product, so no surveys have been conducted. Therefore this section does not apply.

Data not available.

See the section 18.4.4., Verification of data on packaging waste generated, for the details.

It has not been possible to meet the deadlines due to work overload and delays in data analysis. Furthermore, there have been some problems with the informartion declared by producers of product in the Register of Producers of Product and to which an official request has been made, and they have been given additional time to complete their reporting and/or to carry it out if they had not done so. Also it is important to bear in mind that this is the second year that the data of the Register of Producers of Product has been used for extracting some information and for cross check, and this also requires additional time. 

It has not been possible to meet the deadlines due to work overload and delays in data analysis. Furthermore, there have been some problems with the informartion declared by producers of product in the Register of Producers of Product and to which an official request has been made, and they have been given additional time to complete their reporting and/or to carry it out if they had not done so. Also it is important to bear in mind that this is the second year that the data of the Register of Producers of Product has been used for extracting some information and for cross check, and this also requires additional time. 

No information available.

No information available.

No information available. A preliminar comparison has been started with the data of Registry of Producers of Product. So far, no conclusive results have been obtained.

For steel, and as stated on the footnote 1, a recycling rate of 106,69 % has been obtained due to no corrections of small amounts of non-packaging materials and probable "free-riding".

Explanation detailing the causes of the tonnage difference (in relation to which waste streams, sectors or estimates have caused the difference, and what the underlying cause is) for any component of packaging waste generated and recycled which shows greater than a 10 % variation from the data submitted for the previous data year.

Not applicable.

When provisional statistics are used, they are subsequently revised as more accurate or complete data becomes available. If needed, the data are updated. Additionally, when PROs and material entities report their data for a given year, the trends are reviewed in comparison with the previous year. This process has occasionally led to the identification of errors or new values and updating of data from earlier years. This year, such a review has revealed the need to revise certain figures from 2021 and 2022.

Spain is going to inform the Commission about the data updates concerning the following indicators: for the year 2021, Al recycling, metal recycling, and total recycled; and for the year 2022, total Fe, total recycled, and total metal recycling.

The tables have been prepared based on the results of:

• the studies carried out by the Material Entities
• the studies carried out by PRO
• the data declared by producers of product in the packaging section of the Register of Producer of Product.

In the case of plastic packaging and waste plastic packaging, the source is the Ministry itself instead of the Material Entity as in previous years.

The waste samples for waste analysis are taken from:

Yearly.

Consult the following sections.

Not applicable.

Place on the market data for this material is distributed into paper and carboard, plastic and aluminium, according to the average share rate in beverage cartons provided by ECOEMBES: 75% paper, 20% plastic, 5% aluminium. In case of plastic it is not considered because it is lower than 3% materiality threshold.

Additional information about the methodology, including the combination of methods used:

As "other"  Published data from other studies, own elaborations, characterizations, estimates, etc. of the material entieties or of the PROs

The surveys are carried out by the PROs, Material Entitities or the National Statistics Institute. In the case of plastic, an oficial survey is carried out by the  National Institut of Statisitic (INE). It is known as the Industrial Products Survey/PRODCOM survey. It could be consulted in the following website.

 No surveys are used to collect data. This year, for the second time,the national register of producers of product has been used. 

Calculation of recycling of metals from incinerator bottom ash : Detailed description of the method to collect data in order to calculate the amount of metals separated from incineration bottom ash in accordance with the Commission Implementing Act adopted in accordance with Article 37(7) of Directive 2008/98/EC.

Consult the following sections

To reinforce the traceability, the packagin section in the Register of Producers of Product was created via Royal Decree in 2022. By this way, the Ministry knows at first-hand the information on packaging Placed on the Market. nevertheless it is imoprtant to keep in mind that the register is in the first stages of its implementation, and further work is required to maximize its potential and to been able to carried out the quality controls. 

In the frame of the new Spanish packaging legislation, the content of the reports that recyclers shall present is going to be developed and that shall guarantee the traceability of the packaging waste sent to other countries and the treatment to which them are subjected. 

The columns in the table relate to information on verification procedures used within the national statistical reporting system to validate the accuracy of the data.

The columns in the table relate to information on verification procedures used within the national statistical reporting system to validate the accuracy of the data.

Consult the following sections.

Primary sources and their shares in the total.

(*) Necessity of a certain minimum amount of waste, turnover etc. to be registered 

Primary sources and their shares in the total.

(*) Necessity of a certain minimum amount of waste, turnover etc. to be registered

Packaging waste generated estimated by waste analysis

The figures include all types of packaging waste (household, commercial and industrial; reusable and single use) generated in Spain. 

Since the calculations are carried out directly by PROs and Material Entities, Spain does not have any example of them. Entities. For example, and for household packaging waste, ECOEMBES applies average loss rates in recycling proccesses acording to material and recycling stream. References have been obtained via a collective analysis by Material Associations, contrasted with other countries' references and, in addition, shared with the Regional Authorities' working group. ETMRs' quality control data is obtained in application of the ETMR compliance control procedures included in the agreements with  public administrations, which guarantee a limited error for an established confidence interval.

No information for the time being.

Spain has not developed any methodology in this regard at the moment. The PRO Ecoembes applies the current system: Recycled amount is assigned to paper and cardboard after non-target material adjustments and effective recycling proccess for paper fibre. This distribution will be adapted to the recycling process at any given time, so that if a plastic and/or aluminum recycling process is added, the corresponding effective recycling will be computed and each material will be allocated.

Description of the sorted packaging waste to which ALRs are applied, types of sorting plants to which different ALRs apply, the methodological approach to calculating ALRs at such point(s), including the statistical accuracy of any surveys used, or the nature of any technical specifications.

See the following sections.

Description, where applicable, of the methodology to exclude non-packaging waste from the reported amount of recycled packaging waste and of the methodology to correct the amount of packaging waste at the measurement point in order to reflect the natural humidity rate of packaging (including by using relevant European standards). Aggregated data across facilities of a similar type is acceptable.

Description of the methodology to exclude waste originating from other countries, where applicable. Aggregated data across facilities of a similar type is acceptable.

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