On average in the EU, 31kg of plastic packaging waste is produced per person per year. This adds up to 15.8 million tonnes of plastic packaging waste generated in the EU in one year.
Among the EU Member States, the amount of plastic waste generated per person ranged from 12kg in Croatia to 60kg in Ireland. For all Member States, this amount has increased steadily over the last decade.
Around 40% of this waste is recycled, with the highest shares found in Slovenia (63%) and the lowest in Finland (24%).
Targets for recycling packaging waste, plastic packaging, are included in the EU’s action plan for the ‘Circular economy’. To know more about the circular economy, see our dedicated section or explore it with the help of our visualisation tool:
Eurostat is publishing this information on the occasion of Earth Day, which takes place every year on 22 April. This year, Earth Day focuses on ending plastic pollution.
Plastic packaging data in this article refer to 2015. Further Eurostat data on waste can be found in the dedicated section on our website.
For more information, please contact us: estat-user-support@ec.europa.eu.