Plastics, recycling slows in Europe

The European plastics recycling industry is worth EUR 9.1 billion, has 13.2 million tonnes of capacity, around 850 companies and over 30,000 employees. With Spain, Germany, Italy and Poland - according to the latest available data to 2023 - exceeding 100 plants each. Having grown considerably with the 2018 EU plastics strategy, the sector is now in crisis: according to Plastics Recyclers Europe - an association representing more than 200 recyclers in Europe - between January and July 2025, as much capacity has been lost as in 2024 and three times as much as in 2023. Some 40 plants have been closed, mainly in the Netherlands, the UK and Germany, and by the end of 2025 almost one million tonnes of production capacity could be lost.

"Since 2018, with the publication of the European Strategy on Plastics," explains Paolo Glerean, board member of Plastic Reycycles Europe, "Europe has started to focus on a recycling strategy as a local and circular solution, both to create economy and to save on CO2 emissions. Today about 50-60 million tonnes of plastics are processed in Europe, 40% of which is packaging'. The European strategy aims to quadruple the volume of recycling by 2030 compared to 2015," Glerean explains, "and between 2018 and 2023, the capacity for mechanical recycling has, in fact, risen from 6 to 13.2 million tonnes, "but collection and demand have not grown at the same rate, creating the current crisis: we need collection to grow also qualitatively and to be standardised on a continental scale," Glerean emphasises.

Today, the supply chain suffers competition fromcheap and often uncontrolled imports or false certificates of conformity; uneven collection; high energy costs and low prices of non-EU virgin plastics. "Companies have doubled their production capacity, but without sufficient collection in quantity and quality. And a doubled recycling capacity implies a potential doubling of supply on a demand that has not increased to the same extent, affecting selling prices. Added to this is the competition from imported recyclate,' Glerean notes.

In fact, imports of non-EU polymers increased by 5% between 2023 and 2024, and preliminary estimates indicate that 2025 could touch a new record. The basic raw material would be there: over 32 million tonnes of plastic waste are collected every year in the EU (2022 data from Plastics Europe), but large portions of these, which are too shoddy, are exported to Turkey and China (+36% between 2023 and 2024). To stem the crisis, Plastics Recyclers Europe is calling for more customs protection and controls against non-compliant imports, incentives "such as reduced VAT on recyclate and recognition of CO₂ savings through recycling" and cuts in energy costs.

Italy is well on track on its EU targets of 55% of plastic packaging actually recycled by 2030. "The collection increased by about 4% from 2021 to 2024 and sothe share of plastic packaging sent for recycling. In 2024, compared to the amount released for consumption, we will have exceeded 59%," explains Giovanni Bellomi, Director General of Corepla (National Consortium for the Collection, Recycling and Recovery of Plastic Packaging). According to Corepla data, around six million tonnes of plastic are used in Italy, 42% of which is packaging. Packaging accounts for about 80% of the plastic waste collected in Italy and 8% of the total waste. Bellomi emphasises that 'the European Community has changed the accounting rules, basing calculations on actual recycling: in 2024 we reached 49.8% of recycled plastic and we are now possibly above the EU target of 50% for 2025'.