Household households have collected 1,082,300 tons of packaging and waste paper today, as much as in 2020. Due to the pandemic, the amount of glass collected was 253,000 tons, 1.8 percent below the previous year, said Altstoff Recycling Austria AG (ARA) on Monday.

“The big New Year’s Eve celebrations – otherwise a guarantee for high glass collections – were canceled at the turn of the year and the lack of winter tourism also affected the collection volumes for glass and metal packaging,” said ARA board member Christoph Scharff according to a broadcast. The amount of metal collected has also decreased slightly by 1.2 percent to 32,100 tons.

In the case of paper packaging, newspapers and magazines, there was a slight increase of 0.4 percent to 616,500 tons compared to 2020. The share of newspapers and magazines is reduced due to increasing digitization and the increased consumption of digital media. This is ensured by online trading and delivery services for increasing quantities of cardboard and corrugated cardboard.

The area of ​​light packaging, which consists exclusively of plastic packaging, remained constant at 180,700 tons (plus 0.1 percent). “The collection and recycling rate for plastic packaging must be increased significantly in the next few years,” said Scharff. Because while Austria is already meeting the quota for paper, metal and glass, there is still some catching up to do with plastics.