Open data to track progress in the EU’s recycling targets
Publication Date/Time
2023-09-04T06:00:00+00:00
Country
Europe
Key datasets and indicators for monitoring waste treatment
Recycling is a key element
[https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling_en] of
the European Union’s waste management policy. It aims to contribute
to the realisation of a circular economy that maximises the extraction
of high-quality resources from waste. The European Green Deal
[https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en],
which serves as the blueprint for a modern, resource-efficient and
competitive economy, prioritises the transition towards sustainable
practices.

In pursuit of this goal, the waste framework directive
[https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/waste-framework-directive_en]
serves as the primary legal framework for waste treatment and
management in the EU. At the heart of EU waste management lies the
waste hierarchy, consisting of five essential steps, as established by
the waste framework directive.

This hierarchy provides a prioritised approach to waste management and
disposal. Within this directive, waste prevention is emphasised as the
preferred option, while landfilling is regarded as a measure of last
resort. To ensure the well-being of both humans and the environment,
the directive mandates that waste management activities must not
endanger public health, harm natural ecosystems or cause nuisances
such as noise or odours. It also emphasises the principle of the
‘polluter pays’ and introduces the concept of ‘extended producer
responsibility
[https://ec.europa.eu/environment/pdf/waste/target_review/Guidance%20on%20EPR%20-%20Final%20Report.pdf]’.

To comply with the objectives outlined in the waste framework
directive, EU Member States are required to implement measures that
address specific recycling targets within set time frames.

To progress towards a more sustainable future, the EU has set
recycling targets to be achieved in the coming years. By 2025, in each
Member State, the minimum weight of municipal waste that should be
recycled or prepared for reuse must be increased to at least 55 %.
Moreover, by 2030 and 2035, these minimum weights must further rise to
60 % and 65 % respectively.

 

TRACKING RECYCLING IN THE EU

The European Environment Agency [https://www.eea.europa.eu/en] (EEA)
is an EU body that provides useful data about recycling, such as data
on municipal
[https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/advanced-search/?q=municipal%20waste&size=n_10_n&filters%5B0%5D%5Bfield%5D=readingTime&filters%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=any&filters%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D%5Bname%5D=All&filters%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D%5BrangeType%5D=fixed&filters%5B1%5D%5Bfield%5D=issued.date&filters%5B1%5D%5Btype%5D=any&filters%5B1%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=Last%205%20years&filters%5B2%5D%5Bfield%5D=language&filters%5B2%5D%5Btype%5D=any&filters%5B2%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=en]
or packaging
[https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/advanced-search/?q=packaging%20waste&size=n_10_n&filters%5B0%5D%5Bfield%5D=readingTime&filters%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=any&filters%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D%5Bname%5D=All&filters%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D%5BrangeType%5D=fixed&filters%5B1%5D%5Bfield%5D=issued.date&filters%5B1%5D%5Btype%5D=any&filters%5B1%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=Last%205%20years&filters%5B2%5D%5Bfield%5D=language&filters%5B2%5D%5Btype%5D=any&filters%5B2%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=en]
waste. An interesting dataset to track is the one that shows
[https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/recycling-targets-for-municipal-waste]
recycling targets for municipal and packaging waste, with a breakdown
available for different types of materials.

As defined by Eurostat, ‘municipal waste
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Municipal_waste]
consists of waste collected by or on behalf of municipal authorities
and disposed of through waste management systems. Municipal waste
consists mainly of waste generated by households, although it also
includes similar waste from sources such as shops, offices and public
institutions’. Packaging waste
[https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/745707/EPRS_BRI(2023)745707_EN.pdf],
on the other hand, refers to the packaging of ‘products made of any
materials of any nature to be used for the containment, protection,
handling, delivery and presentation of goods, from raw materials to
processed goods, from the producer to the user or the consumer’.

As shown by the following visualisation, the target recycling rate for
municipal waste in Member States is set to 60 % and 65 % by 2035.
Furthermore, by 2030, at least 55 % of plastics packaging, 60 % of
aluminium packaging, 75 % of glass packaging, 80 % of ferrous metal
packaging and 85 % of paper and cardboard packaging should be
recycled.

According to Eurostat, the EU-27 countries produced 2 153 950 000
tonnes of waste
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ENV_WASGEN__custom_6808718/default/table?lang=en]
in 2020. Of those, 19 030 000 tonnes were made of plastic,
17 850 000 of glass, 64 190 000 of ferrous metal and 43 490 000
of paper and cardboard. Even a few points increase in recycling means
a very large amount of reused material that won’t go to a landfill.
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/10.Recycling6-01.png]
EU official bodies produce several datasets that make it possible to
measure the progress towards those goals. Two important indicators to
track, both available on Eurostat’s website, are the ones that
measure the recycling rate of packaging
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/cei_wm020/default/table?lang=en]
and municipal
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_11_60/default/table?lang=en]
waste in the EU and the EEA.

Generally speaking, the recycling rate experienced a significant
growth in the last few years. Many countries, such as Belgium,
Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain, have already reached or
are very near the 2030 recycling target for packaging waste.
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/10.Recycling6-02B.png]
For municipal waste, the EU-27 recycling rate average almost doubled
from 27.3 % in 2000 to 49.6 % in 2021. As the following
visualisation shows, five Member States recycle more than half their
waste: 71.1 % in Germany, 60 % in Slovenia, 57.8 % in the
Netherlands, 55.3 % in Luxembourg and 53.3 % in Belgium.
Slovenia’s case is particularly interesting. The country had a
recycling rate of 6 % in 2000, but was able to increase it tenfold
over the years and become the second-largest recycler in the EU. At
the same time many other countries, especially in central and eastern
Europe, managed to quickly grow their recycling share, and among them
we find Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland and
Slovakia.
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/10.Recycling6-02A.png]
RECYCLING DATA ON DATA.EUROPA.EU

The data.europa.eu portal offers thousands of datasets concerning
recycling. One of the most active contributors has been Slovenia, who
provides over a hundred datasets that detail all kinds of information
on recycling: data [http://data.europa.eu/88u/dataset/surs2706312s]
about the recovered or disposed quantity of waste
[http://data.europa.eu/88u/dataset/surs2706312s], imports and exports
[http://data.europa.eu/88u/dataset/surs2706318s] of wastes in the
whole country [http://data.europa.eu/88u/dataset/surs2706318s], the
location of general and waste oil
[https://data.europa.eu/data/catalogues/odprti-podatki-slovenije]collectors
[https://data.europa.eu/data/catalogues/odprti-podatki-slovenije] in
different municipalities
[https://data.europa.eu/data/catalogues/odprti-podatki-slovenije], and
so on.

For a high-level overview of recycling in Slovenia, a good starting
point is a dataset that provides details on the amount of waste
recycled [http://data.europa.eu/88u/dataset/surs2706312s?locale=en],
categorised by material type, from 2002 to 2021. As demonstrated in
the following visualisation, during this period the amount of waste
generated in Slovenia noticeably increased. However, recycling efforts
also saw a substantial rise. A significant portion of this increase
can be attributed to waste generated in construction and demolition as
well as waste management facilities, where some of the waste is
processed and recycled, and some becomes waste again.

As this EEA report
[https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/Technical_report_no_65/download]
highlights, despite all efforts in waste prevention and minimisation,
part of the waste still requires treatment and safe disposal
facilities. Waste management facilities are structures equipped for
the collection, recovery or disposal of waste, and are responsible for
preparing or processing it for recycling when possible.

Conversely, other sectors, such as wood processing, paper production
and thermal processes, witnessed a significant decrease in the overall
amount of waste produced. On the other hand, metal and plastic
treatment, packaging and municipal waste experienced considerable
growth in 2021 compared to 2002.
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/10.Recycling6-03.png]
In addition to showing progress on a national level, open data can
also be used on a local basis. By collating different datasets
[https://data.europa.eu/data/catalogues/odprti-podatki-slovenije?locale=en&page=1&limit=10&query=municipality%20AND%20waste] from the
Slovenian open data portal, for example, it is possible to build a map
of waste collectors and ‘ecological islands’ in different
municipalities. Ecological islands are sites where citizens can drop
off their waste, usually in different bins for the appropriate kind of
material.

The following map shows the location of ecological islands in the
cities of Sevnica [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevnica] and
Radovljica [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radovljica], while the
original datasets also provide other useful information pertaining to
the ecological islands. According to the data, Radovljica has 38
ecological islands while Sevnica has 188. Both are small towns of
roughly the same area located, respectively, in the north-western and
in the south-eastern side of Slovenia. In 2020 they had about 6 000
and 4 500 inhabitants, respectively.
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/10.Recycling6-04.png]
As this case study shows, open data is a valuable resource that
extends its usefulness beyond high-level countrywide targets, such as
achieving specific recycling goals. It also proves to be beneficial
for citizens at the municipality level, facilitating easy access to
relevant information, such as finding the nearest ecological island.
By making data openly available, governments empower individuals to
make informed decisions and actively participate in their local
communities’ environmental initiatives. Citizens can conveniently
locate nearby ecological islands, contributing to waste management
efforts and reducing their carbon footprint.

 

METHOLODOGICAL NOTES

When this story was produced, 2021 data about the recycling rate of
municipal waste from Eurostat was not yet available for the following
countries: Bulgaria, Ireland, Greece, Italy and Austria. For packaging
waste, data for the following countries was not available: Bulgaria,
Greece, Croatia and Poland. In both cases, years were selected to
provide the longest time series possible for most countries. Data from
the data.europa.eu portal concerning recycling in Slovenia cannot be
directly compared to other sources because a different classification
of waste was used. To translate the waste categories from Slovenian
the classification page of the Slovenian Statistical Office
[https://www.stat.si/Klasje/Klasje/Tabela/2425] was used.

 

Download the data visualisations presented in this article
[https://gitlab.com/dataeuropa/data-provider-repository/-/blob/master/Data%20stories/HVD%20Data%20Stories/Recycling/Recycling-data-visualisations-png.zip] and
the data behind them
[https://gitlab.com/dataeuropa/data-provider-repository/-/blob/master/Data%20stories/HVD%20Data%20Stories/Recycling/Data-Recycling-data-story-04-09-2023.xlsx].

 

_Article by Davide Mancino_

_Data visualisations by Federica Fragapane_
