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.
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%).
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%).