Germany, a virtuous country in many industrial, economic, financial and social aspects, lives with a serious problem regarding its plastic waste.

In fact, every year it exports around one million tonnes of plastic waste for a value of around 254 million euros, remaining the largest exporter in Europe, with around 1.5 million tonnes of this type of waste shipped to abroad.

Until 2018, China was the main customer for this waste and was also a convenient way to clean your own home. But since that date, however, the People's Republic has banned the import of certain materials from urban and industrial collection systems, including unsorted plastic waste.

Germany, like many other countries in the world, has looked for new ports of call for this type of waste material, finding Malaysia willing to receive them , thus reaching 17% of German exports.

However, lately, Malaysia is also monitoring the mix of this waste more carefully, starting to reject some ships after inspections. In 2019, for example, the country returned approximately 4,000 tons of plastic waste to its countries of origin.

Which is why Germany is also always looking for new outlets for the plastic waste that it doesn't want to recycle in its own country and, surprisingly, it has found a solution right close to home. In fact, the Netherlands collects around 15% of German waste with logistics costs that are much more convenient than sending it to the Far East.

In a comparison between European Union countries, Germany is by far the largest exporter with over one million tonnes of plastic waste , followed by Belgium (476,100 tonnes), the Netherlands (389,900 tonnes), France (385,600 tonnes ) and Italy (206,100 tonnes).

There is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to recycling: only a fraction of the waste collected in Germany is destined for incineration and recovery, according to data from the German Federal Office.

In fact, in 2019, 38 million tonnes of waste were collected from separate waste collection, an average of 457 kilograms of household waste per capita and, according to the competent authority, only a third is recycled or incinerated.

Category: news - plastic - circular economy - recycling - waste