Lithuania leads the EU in plastic packaging recycling

February 14, 2021
Plastic bottles
Photo by Bicanski on Pixnio
By Eko Diena in 
 

Statistics published this January by Eurostat show that Lithuania is leading the league table of EU countries when it comes to plastic packaging recycling.

Actually, what they show is that Lithuania was top of the table in 2018, which are the latest statistics that are currently available. It seems a bit crazy that we can't get more up to date information than this, but that's a different issue.

Source data

The 2018 statistics show that an estimated 41.5% of plastic packaging waste was recycled across the EU. Seven EU states managed to recycle more than half of the total plastic packaging waste that they generated, which is encouraging, while Malta dragged the average down considerably with less than 20%.

Lithuania recycled 69.3% of plastic packaging, which was way ahead of the other leading countries; Slovenia (60.4%, 2017 data), Bulgaria (59.2%), Czechia (57.0%), Cyprus (54.3%), and Slovakia (51.4%).

Source data

Sadly, the other Baltic states don't seem to be doing so well. Latvia (35.8%) and Estonia (37.7%) were both just below the EU average.

Some of the countries joining Malta at the bottom end of the list might come as a surprise; France (26.9%), Hungary (30.0%), Ireland (31.0%), Finland (31.1%), and Denmark (31.5%).

© 2021 EKO Diena |
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