The European Waste Framework Directive sets a target of 50 per cent of municipal waste to be prepared for reuse and recycling by 2020 in the European Union. With that year approaching, a look at the most recent European-wide statistics on waste generation and treatment published in 2017 shows the progress that countries have made across the continent in reaching this target.
The cartogram shows each European country proportional to its overall municipal waste production with its respective recycling rate. While only a small number or EU member states had reached that target in these most recent statistics, the largest producers of waste have made considerable progress, resulting in EU-wide recycling rates having increased from 32 per cent in 2004 to 45 per cent in 2016. If non-EU countries are included, that figure lies at 31 per cent across the continent. Improvements have been made by reducing total amounts of waste as well as by increasing the quantities of recycled materials. Among the still more problematic areas remains the issue of plastic waste, of which less than a third is recycled and substantial amounts are being exported to countries outside the EU.
A modified version of this map was published in the January 2020 edition of Geographical Magazine. The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.