Each Czech sorted 78 kg of waste last year, 75 percent of the population regularly sorts

Update: 30.05.2023 18:27

Prague – Each resident of the Czech Republic sorted an average of 78 kilograms of waste last year, which is roughly six kilograms more than the previous year. Data from the company Eko-kom, which organizes the collection and recycling of packaging waste in the Czech Republic, shows that three quarters of the population regularly sort, two percent more year-on-year. In addition, less waste was produced last year than in the previous year, but at the same time more was managed to be sorted. Eko-kom announced this in a press release today.

Compared to 2021, the amount of packaging waste decreased by more than 20,000 tons, i.e. by 1.5 percent. In total, 1.312 million tons of packaging waste were placed on the Czech market, 81 percent of which were recycled and used. Most of the packaging, 71 percent, was recycled, the remaining ten percent was used for energy.

According to the company, the highest recycling rate has traditionally been for paper packaging, where recycling reached 91 percent. This was followed by glass packaging, where the recycling rate reached 85 percent. People also recycled 63 percent of metal packaging. For plastic packaging, the material recycling rate increased from 43 to 46 percent, which is good news, according to the company. A further 39 percent of plastic packaging was used for energy purposes, so a total of 85 percent of plastic was processed.

According to Eko-kom, one of the main factors that determines whether people sort is a certain level of comfort. This means that there must be enough colored containers for sorted waste and they must not be too far away. In the Czech Republic, people currently have more than 838,000 containers at their disposal, the average distance that people have to walk with sorted waste is 87 meters, two meters less than in 2021.

In addition to colored containers, people in the Czech Republic can also use collection yards or recycling centers for sorting, and there is also the option of sorting directly at home into colored bags. In recent years, the so-called multi-commodity container collection has also been used in the Czech Republic, where, for example, it is possible to throw beverage cartons or metal into the yellow container in addition to plastic. These methods save space in municipalities and emissions during collection.

Eko-kom has a monopoly on packaging sorting and recycling in the Czech Republic. Its services are used by companies supplying packaged goods to the Czech market. By the end of 2022, 6,176 municipalities and cities of the Czech Republic were involved in the Eko-jom system, so 99 percent of the population in their cities have the option to sort.