The 88%
problem

01 — Where it comes from

7.70 billion tonnes

That is how much material the EU processed in 2024: around 17 tonnes for every resident.

• 5.17 extracted from European soil, forests and seabed
• 1.49 imported
• 1.04 recovered from waste: recycled or backfilled

Source: Eurostat, Material flows in the circular economy, 2024 data.

02 — Where it goes

Most of it never comes back

• 2.42 burned for energy: fuel, food and feed that leave as emissions
• 2.92 locked into buildings, roads and other long-lived stock
• 0.66 exported
• 1.70 becomes waste, of which 0.55 is landfilled and 0.11 incinerated

Source: Eurostat, env_ac_sd, env_wassd, 2024.

03 — The loop

One thin line back

Only the blue flows are circular: 0.75 billion tonnes recycled and 0.29 used as backfill. Measured the way the EU tracks it, just 12.2% of the material Europe uses comes from recycled waste.

Circular material use rate, EU-27, 2024. Source: Eurostat, env_ac_cur.

04 — Material by material

Not all materials are equal

Use the filters above the chart to compare circularity by material. Metals come back best at 23.4%. Fossil energy materials barely come back at all: 3.8%. They are burned once and gone.

Circularity rate by material, EU-27, 2024. Source: Eurostat, env_ac_curm.