Single-use plastics: Ten countries ahead of schedule on collection targets

Belgium, Denmark and Germany are among the member states to have already met the 2025 single-use plastic (SUP) collection target of 77%.

The European Commission published the first report under the Single Use Plastics Directive (SUPD) on Thursday (16 April) based on data from EU member states. The report shows several countries had already met some targets by 2022.

The report will be used as a baseline to measure:

Member states’ compliance with the 2025 and 2030 binding targets for the separate collection of SUP beverage bottles
Consumption of SUP food containers and beverage cups
The amount of fishing gear containing plastic that is placed on the market and collected as waste

In 2022:

524,003 tonnes of SUP food containers (about 1.6 kg per person) and 152,037 tonnes of SUP beverage cups (about 0.5 kg per person) were sold in the EU. Subsequent reports will measure whether member states have reduced the consumption of these products by 2026.
The most common measures introduced by Member States to reduce the consumption of SUP food containers and beverage cups included economic instruments, such as extended producer responsibility (EPR) obligations and green public procurement instruments, as well as awareness campaigns and the promotion of sustainable alternatives.
71% of SUP beverage bottles were separately collected across the EU. Estonia, Poland, Finland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Croatia, Slovakia and Belgium have already met the 2025 target of 77%, with six of these countries already meeting the 2030 target of 90% (Estonia, Poland, Finland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden). Countries with high collection rates generally operate Deposit and Refund Systems (DRS).
22,900 tonnes of plastic-containing fishing gear were placed on the market, with around a third collected as waste.

Next steps

The Commission will continue to monitor Member States’ progress, based on their annual reporting on single-use plastics. These updates will track changes in consumption and collection, and evaluate the success of measures to reduce environmental impacts using the 2022 data as the baseline for future monitoring.

Background

The SUPD Directive targets the ten most commonly found single-use plastic products on European beaches, as well as plastic-containing fishing gear. It introduces measures for different categories of products, including those made entirely or partly from plastics.

Where affordable and easily available alternatives exist (such as paper), single-use plastic products have been banned: cotton bud sticks, cutlery, plates, stirrers, straws, balloon sticks, and food and beverage containers made of expanded polystyrene, as well as all products made of oxo-degradable plastics.

The EU aims to limit other single-use plastics through measures such as consumption reduction and the promotion of reusable alternatives.

The Directive sets specific rules for fishing gear containing plastics, including producer responsibility from creation to end-of-life, monitoring and reporting obligations, and national annual collection rates for recycling. 