Where does our waste actually go?
Europe produces around 5 tonnes of waste per person a year, and only some of it comes back. We mapped which streams get recycled, from packaging (67.5%) to textiles (<1% fibre-to-fibre), and where Greece sits: 17% recycled, 80% landfilled.
The short answer is it depends on what waste you’re referring to, so let’s break that down below.
In Europe, approximately 5 tonnes of waste is produced per person per year (2.23B tonnes in total).
64% is mining waste, old concrete and removed soil. Heavy, inert, and largely recoverable.
Strip this out and what remains is 1.8 tonnes of waste per person.
Of that, 517 kg is municipal waste, so in the bins you and I interact with daily. The rest is a mix of industrial, commercial, agricultural and other waste.
Tracked waste streams
Per person, per year, and what returns:
178 kg packaging · 67.5% recycled
517 kg municipal · 48.1% recycled
35 kg plastic packaging · 42.1% recycled
129 kg food & bio-waste · ~40% recycled
11.6 kg e-waste collected, of 32 kg sold · 30.8% recycled
16 kg textiles · <1% fibre-to-fibre; <15% collected separately
(These overlap: packaging, food and textiles also partly sit inside the municipal value.)
Packaging works best due to systems such as deposit schemes, producer responsibility and collection infrastructure.
Textiles have none of that. 85% of textile waste passes through municipal bins, so it is not collected separately, and from there it is lost to landfill or incineration.
Where Greece sits
We recycle 17% (vs. EU avg. 49%)
We landfill 80% (vs. EU avg. 24%)
Neither stat has improved since 2019.
Photo: Gwendolyn Schanker
On 9 October 2025 the Court of Justice fined Greece €5.5M over one landfill on Zakynthos, inside protected loggerhead habitat, plus €12,500 for every further day it stays open. The court listed Greece’s national waste record as an aggravating factor. A landfill restoration plan has been made, but has there been any progress?
By 2035 every member state must recycle 65% and landfill under 10%.
Over the coming weeks we take this apart: what is being done, the gaps, who solved it elsewhere, and who is building the fix.
Comment any reflections and insights on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Sources
Eurostat – Waste statistics (2022 data): total EU waste generation and mineral share
Eurostat – Municipal waste statistics: generation, recycling and landfill rates
Eurostat – 517 kg of municipal waste per capita in 2024
Eurostat – Packaging waste statistics (2023): packaging and plastic packaging volumes and recycling
European Environment Agency – Recycling rates in Europe by waste stream (2023): packaging, municipal and e-waste recycling rates
European Environment Agency – Circularity of the EU textiles value chain in numbers (2022 data): textile generation and capture rate
European Compost Network – Bio-waste in Europe (2022): bio-waste recycling share (industry association estimate)
McKinsey & Company – Scaling textile recycling in Europe: fibre-to-fibre recycling share (industry estimate)
European Environment Agency – Greece circular economy country profile (2022 data): Greek recycling and landfill rates
Court of Justice of the European Union – judgment of 9 October 2025 on the Zakynthos landfill (Case C-368/24, following Case C-600/12)
European Commission – Waste Framework Directive: 2035 recycling target
European Commission – Landfill Directive: 2035 landfill target
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