Debates about packaging waste tend to start and end with carrier bags, yet the largest item in the 79.7 million tonnes of packaging waste generated in the EU in 2023 was paper and cardboard at 32.3 million tonnes, or 40.4 per cent of the total.
| Indicator (EU, 2023) | Value |
|---|---|
| Packaging waste per person | 177.8 kg (8.7 kg less than 2022) |
| Plastic packaging | 15.8 million tonnes, 19.8 per cent of the total |
| Overall recycling rate | 67.5 per cent (2030 target 70 per cent) |
| Plastic recycling | Target 55 per cent; only Belgium (59.5) and Latvia (59.2) reached it |
Eurostat counts reusable packaging only once in its lifetime, so a container that runs hundreds of trips appears once in the statistics. That is not a trick but the logic of reuse: packaging that is never produced never becomes waste.
A product often changes boxes several times before it reaches the shelf (a carton at the producer, a crate in distribution, a display box in the store), and every change is new packaging. In a reusable container such as the GEBHARDT Isotec TBX, the plates that supply the cold and the transport container are in the same place, so transfers drop.
National statistics make a good background, but the number you can manage is your own weighing. Without knowing how many kilos of cardboard, stretch film and EPS you throw out in a quarter, no environmental target is measurable.
