Press release No. N 016 of 3 March 2021
- From the waste bin into the shipping container: more than one million tonnes of plastic waste were exported from Germany last year
- Germany is the EU’s largest plastic waste exporter
- Before the coronavirus pandemic: the per capita quantity of recyclables collected from households amounted to 146 kilograms in 2019
WIESBADEN - Many goods are packaged in plastic in Germany; the waste generated is recycled, disposed in landfills, burned or leaves the country in the form of trading goods. Based on provisional figures, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that just over one million tonnes of plastic waste were exported to other countries in 2020. However, plastic waste exports have declined in the medium term. Last year plastic waste exports decreased by 8% year on year and by 33% compared with ten years earlier. In 2010 nearly 1.5 million tonnes of plastic waste had been exported.
Please note:
The original version of the chart showing exports of plastic waste contained a wrong unit of measurement. This error was corrected on 2 April 2022.
