In 2021, the EU’s circular material use rate reached 11.7%, which means that almost 12% of material resources used in the EU came from recycled waste materials, according to Eurostat data.
The EU’s circular material use rate, referred to as the circularity rate, is the share of used material resources which came from recycled waste materials, Eurostat, a Directorate-General of the European Commission, says. The information comes from data on circular material use rate published by Eurostat.
Compared with 2020, the circularity rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points (pp), Eurostat says.
The Government agency continues that the rate maintained a stable growth trend from 2004 (the first year for which data is available is 8.3%) to 2019 (12.0%), before declining in the years affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (11.8% in 2020 and 11.7% in 2021).
Compared with 2020, the circularity rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points (pp), Eurostat says.
In 2021, the circularity rate was highest in the Netherlands (34%), followed by Belgium (21%) and France (20%), according to Eurostat.
The lowest rate was recorded in Romania (1%), followed by Finland and Ireland (both 2%). Differences in the circularity rate among the Member States are based not only on the amount of recycling of each country but also on structural factors in national economies, Eurostat says.
Eurostat says that depending on the main type of material, the circularity rate also presented some minor differences. In 2021, the circularity rate for biomass was 20% (+0.4 pp compared with 2020), for non-metallic minerals 14% (no change), for fossil energy materials/carriers 3% (-0.1 pp) and metal ores 23% (-1.0 pp).
