In a report published today, the Commission identifies Member States at risk of not meeting the 2025 preparing for re-use and recycling targets for municipal and all packaging waste and the 2035 landfilling target. Nine Member States are on track to meet the 2025 targets, however, 18 Member States are at risk of missing one or both of the 2025 targets. The Early Warning Report (EWR) also reveals that some countries also continue to landfill most of their municipal waste and will probably fail to meet the 2035 landfilling target. The Commissions presents recommendations to these Member States, building on continuous financial and technical support provided for improving performance on waste management.
The report shows that there are significant differences in waste management performance across the EU. For some countries, there is still a long way to go to meet the targets agreed in EU legislation and more reforms are needed, notably: to ensure biowaste treatment, which represents a third of municipal waste; separate collection of waste - a prerequisite to recycling; and improve data quality. However, most EU countries have or are in the process of putting place waste reforms to improve recycling rates, some of which should yield results in the coming years. Together with packaging waste, biowaste management comes out as one of the main issues identified as hindering performance in recycling, although the obligation of separately collecting biowaste applies as of 1 January 2024.
For More Information on the EWR, take a look here the European Commission’s press release and list of documents attached.
Figure: Coverage of population in EU Member States with high-convenience collection systems by municipal waste stream and average share of each material in municipal waste
