In the second year of the pandemic, businesses and consumers used more packaging again. A good two thirds of this were recycled. In terms of recycling, Germany has already achieved almost all targets set by the EU for 2025 and 2030. The latest study conducted by the Gesellschaft für Verpackungsmarktforschung (GVM) on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency reports a 4.9 percent increase in packaging waste. The sharp increase to almost 19.7 million tons is primarily due to the commercial sector, where corona-related declines in volumes – including the use of wooden pallets and glass packaging – were more than compensated for, reports the Lebensmittelzeitung from the study.
Boom in E-Commerce
The tonnage for private end consumers only grew by 0.7 percent to around 8.8 million tons or 106 kilograms per capita. Including the commercial sector, 237 kilograms were generated per capita, 11 kilograms more than in the previous year. The main driver of the increase in households appears to be paper packaging, the consumption of which reached 3.2 million tons in the reporting year. According to the experts at GVM, the booming e-commerce requires more cardboard packaging, shipping bags and wrapping paper. On the other hand, the demand for heavier primary packaging is increasing to meet growing shipping requirements.
Only Plastic Below the Quota
The third source fueling the increase is the increased use of paper-based composite packaging with plastic components. The Mainz-based market experts also determine the recycling rates of the individual packaging materials for the Federal Environment Agency's mandatory annual report to the EU. According to the findings, Germany has already exceeded seven out of eight of the quotas required by Brussels for 2030, and this almost a decade before the due date. Only plastics (quota realized in 2021: 48.4 percent) are still 6.6 percentage points below the 55 percent to be met in 2030 and 1.6 percentage points below the 50 percent specified for 2025. GVM expects that the 4.5 percentage point increase in the plastic recycling rate in Germany since 2022 in accordance with the Packaging Act will make a significant contribution to achieving the EU target before 2025.
Since the 2020 reporting year, the amount of waste fed into the "final recycling process" has been decisive in calculating the proportion of material recycling. Compared to the previous system, the recycling rates are slightly lower because material losses at the individual process stages are deducted.
In relation to all packaging types, this results in a 6.1 percentage point reduction in the recycling rate to 67.9 percent. This is accompanied by an increase in the amount of packaging waste recycled for energy recovery or as substitute fuel.
At the same time, the amount of packaging waste recycled for energy recovery or as substitute fuel increased by around 1 million tons to just under 5.6 million tons.
According to the latest annual balance sheet, 90 percent of emptied consumer and commercial packaging was returned to the recycling loop in Germany and 8 percent in the EU across all material fractions.
