Austria’s leading waste collection system for packaging, Altstoff Recycling Austria (ARA, Vienna; www.ara.at), collected 1.083m t of household packaging and paper waste in 2018, exceeding the 2017 amount by 0.6%, says ARA. This is the highest amount collected in Austria since the system was implemented 25 ago.

Around 176,200 t were plastic and lightweight packaging (up 2%). Paper waste made up the largest portion with 645,000 t (down 0.3%), followed by glass waste with 232,500 t (up 2.1%). Metal packaging came in at about 29,400 t (down 0.9%). According to ARA, the separate collection and recycling of packaging saved 500,000 t of CO₂ equivalent, which corresponds to about 6% of Austria’s annual car emissions.

“When it comes to packaging recycling, Austria is a leader in the EU,” said Christoph Scharff of the ARA management board. “However, we need to improve the re-use and recycling of plastics. Should EU member states achieve the 50% recycling goal for plastic packaging in 2025, we will have 10m t of recyclate on the market.” This would be triple the amount available today, which is why practical applications are required for recycled plastics not only in the packaging sector, but also in areas such as construction, automotive and electronics.