Bottle returns or not: Hungary is a laggard in plastic recycling

EU: slow progress, ambitious targets

According to the latest Eurostat data, the EU’s material circularity rate was just 12.2% in 2024, while the target for 2030 is almost double that, at 23%. Performance varies widely between member states: the Netherlands is at the top of the ranking with 32.7%, while several countries – including Romania, Ireland, Finland and Portugal – are well below the EU average.

The level of circularity also differs by material type: more than 23% of metal ores are recycled, around 10% of biomass, while for fossil fuels the rate barely exceeds 3%. The overall picture is mixed, but there is slow improvement – mainly in those countries that have for years been consistently investing in capacity and infrastructure development.

Plastic packaging: more waste, limited real circularity

Plastic packaging is a particularly critical area. In 2023, an average EU citizen generated 35.25 kg of plastic packaging waste, of which only 14.83 kg was actually recycled – an effective recycling rate of around 42.1%. There has been some progress over the past ten years, but circularity is still only partially achieved.

Belgium, Latvia and Slovakia lead the ranking with plastic recycling rates between 54% and 60%. At the very bottom, however, is Hungary: the domestic rate is just 23%, lower even than the figures for France and Austria.

Hungary: major investments, few visible results

In Hungary, the introduction of the MOHU-operated bottle return (REpont) system over the past two years has drawn the most attention to household waste collection and return schemes. In practice, however, the system is still far from smooth: in many stores there are too few machines, the devices are slow, and they do not accept all types of packaging. All this clearly undermines consumer willingness to use the system and trust in how it works.

MOHU has announced several improvements – installing new machines, expanding capacity, and introducing more standardised fees – but their impact has yet to show up in the Eurostat statistics. Based on the latest data, Hungary’s plastic recycling rate remains low, and the efficiency of collection, sorting and processing infrastructure often falls short of EU expectations.

The clock is ticking: 2030 is getting close

At EU level, the slight reduction in waste volumes and the gradual improvement in recycling point to a positive trend, but at the current pace the 2030 targets will not be safely met. Experts say that binding recycled-content quotas, stronger economic incentives, larger waste-management capacities and more modern household collection systems will become unavoidable.

For Hungary this is an especially urgent issue: unless investments and system upgrades accelerate, domestic FMCG and retail chains could soon find themselves in a market and regulatory environment where they start from a disadvantage not only compared with the EU average, but also with their closest competitor countries – in terms of consumer perception, procurement costs and compliance obligations alike.