As of January 2023, Austria’s Packaging Ordinance is introducing the uniform collection of lightweight packaging throughout the country. All plastics packaging, such as yoghurt pots, plastic bags and tubes, will be collected together with plastic bottles and beverage cartons in the yellow bin or yellow bag. This marks an important step for climate protection and for attaining EU’s recycling targets, commented Austria’s leading packaging collection system Altstoff Recycling Austria (ARA, Vienna; www.ara.at), which expects the volume of plastics packaging collected to increase by 20% as a result of the change.

ARA has been advocating the uniform collection of plastics packaging for many years. “Collections have been handled differently in the individual federal states. This has meant that many citizens are not sure about how to properly segregate waste,” explained ARA board spokesperson Harald Hauke.

From 2025 onward, it will be compulsory to jointly collect plastics and metal packaging throughout Austria. The states of Carinthia, Lower Austria, Salzburg, Vienna, and a number of districts in Upper Austria will be implementing this step in 2023. The remaining states will still be collecting plastics and metal packaging separately over the next two years, in either the yellow bin or yellow bag and the blue bin.

Related: Plastics recycling in Austria has considerable catching up to do

“We have to double the amount of plastics packaging recycled in Austria by 2025 if we are to comply with the requirements of the new ordinance,” Hauke explains.

Additional sorting capacity will be required as the volumes collected increase. ARA, together with partners, is thus constructing a sorting plant in Upper Austria with a capacity of up to 100,000 t/y (see Plasteurope.com of 26.07.2022).