European Waste Packaging Recycling Targets: Where Are We At? A Performance Evolution Assessment

ABSTRACT

Over the last decade, ambitious recycling targets for municipal waste and packaging waste have been set by the European legislator to achieve a more circular economy. In this paper, the performance evolution of European countries is evaluated with respect to the constantly evolving waste management legal framework and their response to increasingly demanding targets. An innovative dynamic composite indicator is proposed to assess country performance with respect to different packaging waste categories and considering their deviation from set targets. In the proposed synthetic indicator, targets are distinguished into essential thresholds, ensuring compliance with fundamental standards, and aspiration levels, which encourage progress toward sustainability although not mandatory. The evolution of 27 European countries from 2015 to 2020 is assessed, a period in which the packaging legislative framework experienced important changes. Three countries, Malta, Croatia, and Cyprus, failed to meet the essential thresholds in both periods and were therefore excluded from the second‐step analysis. Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Denmark emerged as leading performers in 2020 while Greece, Hungary, Romania, and Sweden ranked at the bottom of the Goal Programming Synthetic Indicator in 2020, with Romania recording the lowest score. Plastic and glass emerge as the most critical materials across Member States. Finland, Latvia and Slovakia are the only countries that improved their overall performance despite increasingly stringent aspirational targets, driven by enabling factors such as deposit‐return systems and door‐to‐door separate collection. These findings identify best practices and priority actions to support lagging‐behind countries in their transition toward a more circular economy.