Brussels, 18 March 2026. Italy remains one of the European Union's top performers on packaging
recycling, but 2026 will be a year of caution. CONAI, the Italian National Packaging Consortium, today
released its first recycling estimates for the current year on the occasion of World Recycling Day,
projecting a rate of around 75%, nearly 11 million tonnes of packaging, a slight dip from the 76.7%
recorded in 2024.
The figure keeps Italy well ahead of the EU average. Across the bloc, the overall packaging recycling rate stood at 67.5% in 2023, and only seven member states had already surpassed the 70% threshold set as the EU's 2030 target (Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechia, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Spain. Italy is among them, but CONAI's president, Ignazio Capuano, warns that the gains of recent years cannot be taken for granted.
"This year calls for great caution," said Capuano. "The dynamics we are observing in recycling rates are shaped by contextual factors - statistical, but also structural. Particular market pressures are affecting individual material streams."
The slowdown in traditional plastic recycling, driven by growing volumes of sorted packaging waste that the market is no longer collecting, risks distorting the measurement of actual recycling flows. Italy's energy costs, the highest in Europe, compound the problem for an inherently energy-intensive sector. Meanwhile, the flood of finished goods imported at low cost from outside the EU is undermining the economic viability of domestic recycling industries.
"We can no longer afford to cancel out the environmental benefits of recycling through imports from
outside Europe," Capuano said. "The carbon footprint of a container ship from the Far East is not
environmentally neutral. Recognising the environmental value of local recycling, economically as well as symbolically, is essential if we are to protect our companies from environmental and economic speculation."
Despite these pressures, municipalities are expected to entrust more end-of-life packaging to the CONAI system than ever before: over 5.5 million tonnes in 2026, up from 4.74 million tonnes in 2024. This reflects the consortium's countercyclical role - stepping in when market profitability retreats, and returning space to the market when recycling becomes economically viable again.
CONAI is also calling on European policymakers to act with greater urgency on two fronts: industrial
policy that actively promotes the use of locally recycled materials, and a clearer regulatory framework, particularly around the new EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, to restore business confidence and unlock investment in ecodesign and sustainability.
"Italian companies are already starting to invest less in ecodesign," Capuano noted. "This is a
consequence of the uncertainty surrounding the new European regulation, compounded by the diverging approaches of global powers at this historical moment. We need clearer rules to strengthen industrial planning, and we need finance to become more accessible for small and medium-sized enterprises."
Italy's recycling performance demonstrates what is possible when public institutions, industry and civil society align around shared environmental goals. As the EU pushes toward its 2030 targets, the CONAI model, and its ambition to embed circular economy practices into every layer of Italian society, including sport, offers a replicable benchmark for other member states.
For media inquiries:
Head of Media Relations CONAI
Alessandro Bizzotto
+39 02 5404423
