Waste recycling

Recycling rates for municipal waste, packaging waste and WEEE — significant sources of secondary materials and critical raw materials — are slowly increasing in Europe, indicating some progress towards using more waste as a resource and achieving a circular economy. The overall recycling rate — the ratio between total waste generated excluding minerals and the quantities that were managed through recycling — stayed below half of the total waste generation for the period data are available, showing a recycling rate of 46% in 2020.

Progress made in recent years for three key waste streams — packaging, municipal waste, and electrical and electronic waste — has been more significant than global progress. However, their recycling rates are still below half of generated waste, with the exception of packaging, which reached 66% in 2018.

A key principle of EU waste policy is to move waste management up the ‘waste hierarchy’ and to follow the principles of a circular economy, namely to maintain resource value in the economic cycle to prevent and reduce the negative effects of using primary resources on the environment and society. Recycling is one of the main ways to reduce the consumption of primary resources, by replacing them with secondary materials made from recycled waste. This is the desired approach to achieving sustainability, material self-sufficiency and the other benefits of a circular economy.