Germany continues to post the highest recycling rate in Europe, and a few other countries experienced surges in their rates.
Data released by European Union (EU) agency Eurostat showed Germany notched a 66.1 percent recycling rate in 2015, up from 65.6 percent the year before.
Across the EU’s 28 countries, the 2015 average recycling rate was 45 percent, according to Eurostat. While many of the countries’ recycling rates moved up or down only slightly, a few had big jumps. Those included Slovenia (up 18.1 percentage points year over year), Poland (up 10.2 percentage points) and Finland (8.1 percentage points).
The Eurostat numbers include weights recycled, composted and processed in anaerobic digesters from the municipal solid waste stream. They included countries both within and outside of the EU.
Following were the 2015 recycling rates (data for Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Romania were not available):
Germany: 66.1 percent
Austria: 56 percent
Slovenia: 54.1 percent
Belgium: 53.4 percent
Switzerland: 52.7 percent
Netherlands: 51.7 percent
Luxembourg: 48 percent
Sweden: 48 percent
Denmark: 46.3 percent
Italy: 43.5 percent
United Kingdom: 43.5 percent
Norway: 42.8 percent
Poland: 42.5 percent
Finland: 40.6 percent
France: 39.5 percent
Spain: 33.3 percent
Lithuania: 33.1 percent
Hungary: 32.2 percent
Czech Republic: 29.7 percent
Bulgaria: 29.4 percent
Estonia: 28.3 percent
Latvia: 26.7 percent
Croatia: 18 percent
Cyprus: 17.9 percent
Slovakia: 14.9 percent
Malta: 6.3 percent
Montenegro: 5.4 percent
Serbia: 0.8 percent
Countries that had their recycling rates improve from 2014 to 2015 included Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Croatia, Cyprus, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Norway and Serbia.
Countries that experienced declining recycling rates included Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Austria, Sweden, U.K., Switzerland, Montenegro.
Letsrecycle.com provided a look at the data, focusing on the United Kingdom, which had its recycling rate slip slightly.
