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★Mark us as a preferred sourceThe official balance sheet on Austrian waste management for the 2024 reference year has now been published. Issued by the Umweltbundesamt and the BMLUK, “Die Bestandsaufnahme der Abfallwirtschaft in Österreich – Statusbericht 2026 für das Referenzjahr 2024” covers 273 pages and breaks down 28 waste streams to show what happened to Austria’s waste. The picture is a double one: with its municipal waste recycling rate, Austrian waste management comfortably exceeds the EU requirement, yet the data on plastics, textiles and electrical waste reveal structural weaknesses that almost literally repeat Hungary’s problems – only with more money and better infrastructure behind them.
The numbers behind Austrian waste management in 2024: 67 million tonnes, but what does that cover?
Total waste generation in Austrian waste management amounted to roughly 67 million tonnes in 2024, consisting of 63.4 million tonnes of primary waste (arising for the first time in households, commerce and industry) and 3.6 million tonnes of secondary waste (treatment residues: ashes, shredder residues, rejects from secondary raw material production).
That headline figure is misleading unless it is broken down. 56.7% of the 67 million tonnes is excavated material (Aushubmaterialien) – 38.02 million tonnes – with a further 16.5% construction and demolition waste. Municipal waste from households accounts for just 6.9%, municipal waste from other sources for 3.7%. In tonnage terms, Austrian waste management therefore predominantly moves mineral material, and household waste – the focus of most regulation and public debate – makes up barely a tenth of the total.
The trend points downwards. Primary waste generation fell from 67 million tonnes in 2020 to 63.4 million tonnes in 2024, a decline of 5.4%. Excavated material has dropped 6.8% since 2020 and construction and demolition waste 3.3%. Per capita waste generation excluding excavated material stood at 3,158 kg in 2024 and has fallen every year since 2022 (–5.0%, –3.8%, –1.1%). The report does not sell this as a success story: it states openly that the decline is largely a consequence of recession and reduced construction activity rather than the result of deliberate waste prevention.
That distinction matters. Anyone following Hungarian data will recognise the familiar trap: an economic slowdown pushes waste volumes down, which looks good in the statistics in the short term but is not a structural achievement – it reverses with the first upturn.
The treatment breakdown for the full 67 million tonnes in 2024:
- 54% material recovery, comprising 36% recycling and 18% backfilling (Verfüllung),
- 6% thermal treatment,
- 38% landfilling (predominantly excavated material),
- less than 3% other treatment (mechanical-biological treatment, chemical-physical treatment).
Strip out excavated material and the remaining 28 million tonnes produce an entirely different picture: 66% recycling, 11% backfilling, 14% thermal treatment and 9% landfilling. This second data set is the real performance indicator – and it is strong by international standards.
The infrastructure behind it: around 3,600 waste treatment facilities were operating in Austria in 2024, including nearly 1,000 mobile units for mineral construction and demolition waste. The structure behind the number: 1,132 landfills, 404 composting plants, 195 recycling and other material recovery facilities, 331 pre-treatment plants (sorting and processing), 169 biogas plants, 49 thermal treatment facilities for streams other than municipal waste, 13 mechanical-biological treatment plants, 12 municipal waste incineration plants, 50 chemical-physical treatment plants – and only 87 facilities for preparation for re-use.
That figure of 87 is one of the report’s most telling data points. Capacity for the operation sitting at the top of the waste hierarchy simply does not exist at meaningful scale – the report addresses this itself when it records that preparation for re-use accounted for just 0.6% of municipal waste treatment in 2024.
Municipal waste in Austrian waste management: 60.7% against a 55% target
Around 7.12 million tonnes of municipal waste were generated in Austria in 2024, equivalent to 775 kg per capita. Of this, 4.64 million tonnes came from households and similar establishments (505 kg per capita) and 2.48 million tonnes from other sources (270 kg per capita). Compared with 2023, the volume fell by 0.4%.
At first glance 775 kg per capita looks strikingly high – well above the EU average. The explanation is methodological: since 2020 Austria has included commercial and industrial waste of a household-like nature in its municipal waste figures. This is an important lesson for any international comparison: the boundaries of the “municipal waste per capita” indicator sit in different places from country to country, and an Austrian–Hungarian comparison is only meaningful on an identical definition.
Regional variation is substantial: 570 kg per capita in Vienna against 951 kg per capita in Upper Austria – a difference of 67%. The report attributes this to socio-demographic factors (income, household size, second residences, daily commuters), tourism intensity and the density of commercial and industrial operations. Vienna’s low figure typically reflects the combination of an urban apartment stock and smaller volumes of other-origin waste.
By composition, recyclable materials (Altstoffe) account for 46% of the total, followed by residual waste at 25%, biowaste and green waste at 22%, bulky waste at 4%, hazardous household waste, electrical waste and batteries at 2%, and street sweepings at 1%.
The key figure: of the 7.116 million tonnes, around 4.28 million tonnes were recycled, or 60.1%. Adding 42,000 tonnes prepared for re-use (0.6%) brings the municipal recycling rate in Austrian waste management to 60.7% – comfortably meeting the 55% EU target set for 2024, with room to spare. Within the recycled volume, 2.695 million tonnes were recyclable materials (including 17,000 tonnes of metals recovered from thermal treatment) and 1.585 million tonnes biowaste and green waste.
Around 2.62 million tonnes went to thermal recovery, of which 2.603 million tonnes (36.6%) counts as energy recovery after metal separation. Final disposal – including output streams from thermal treatment – took around 725,000 tonnes, or 10.2% of the volume generated, including 183,000 tonnes landfilled after pre-treatment.
Residual waste composition: a third is organic material
One of the sharpest internal contradictions in Austrian waste management lies in what residual waste actually contains. Total mixed municipal and similar commercial waste (Restmüll) amounted to 2,087,355 tonnes in 2024, of which 1,843,002 tonnes counts as municipal waste and 244,353 tonnes is production-specific in origin.
Based on the 2018/2019 residual waste analyses, the composition of residual waste from municipal collection is:
- organic material and avoidable/partly avoidable food: 33% (17.7% organics, 15.7% food),
- packaging: 17%,
- recyclable materials excluding packaging: 16%,
- hygiene products: 15%,
- inert material, other waste, sorting residue: 18%,
- hazardous household waste, hazardous waste, electrical appliances, batteries: 1%.
This means two thirds of residual waste is material that could in principle be separately collected or avoided altogether – in a country achieving a 60.7% recycling rate. The packaging figure is telling in absolute terms too: packaging in residual waste totals around 250,000 tonnes, close to 18% of Austria’s entire packaging waste volume, bypassing the collection system altogether.
Packaging in Austrian waste management: 66.6% recycling, but plastic at only 27.9%
Around 1,416,229 tonnes of packaging were placed on the market or arose as waste in Austria in 2024 – a noticeable drop from 1,466,678 tonnes in 2023. By material: paper, board and corrugated 628,226 tonnes, glass 315,592 tonnes, plastic 297,639 tonnes, wood 105,447 tonnes, metal 66,775 tonnes (26,694 tonnes aluminium and 38,081 tonnes ferrous metals), other 2,550 tonnes.
Recycling rates by material in 2024:
| Packaging material | Recycling rate | Total recovery rate |
|---|---|---|
| Paper, board, corrugated | 80.9% | 100% |
| Glass | 84.7% | 88.0% |
| Metal | 81.4% | 81.4% |
| Plastic | 27.9% | 100% |
| Wood | 28.7% | 100% |
| Other | 0% | 95.5% |
| Total | 66.6% | 96.5% |
The total recovery rate is 96.5%, the recycling rate 66.6%. The gap between the two is the whole story: 27.9% of plastic packaging is recycled, with practically all of the remainder going to energy recovery. The 100% total recovery rate for plastic is not an achievement but a consequence of the fact that Austria has had virtually no landfilling without pre-treatment since 2009 – whatever is not recovered as material is burned.
The plastic packaging recycling rate has barely moved in ten years: 34.4% in 2015, 30.8% in 2019, 25.4% in 2022, 27.9% in 2024. This is not an improving trend but stagnation at a low level – at a time when the PPWR sets materially higher expectations for every material stream by 2030.
The precise material balance: of the 1,416,000 tonnes, 943,000 tonnes went to material recovery (886,000 tonnes domestically, 57,000 tonnes abroad), 412,000 tonnes to energy recovery, and 22,000 tonnes to preparation for re-use or other recovery.
Deposit return and refill: two recent instruments in Austrian waste management
Since 2024 a reusable offer has been mandatory in Austrian food retail. Businesses can choose between sales-side and offer-side compliance: on the sales side at least 25% of beverage volume (in litres) must be sold in reusable containers; on the offer side at least 15% of all beer and water items in the range and at least 10% of all soft drink, juice and milk items must be available in reusable format.
The deposit on single-use beverage packaging (Pfandverordnung) took effect on 1 January 2025: 25 cents per unit on plastic beverage bottles and beverage cans with a fill volume of 0.1 to 3 litres. The report records the first-year result: a collection rate of 81.5% in 2025, above the 80% target.
For Hungarian readers this is one of the most interesting points in the entire report. Austria exceeded its own target in the DRS’s first full year – but the system’s launch coincided with the 2025 requirement for nationally uniform joint collection of plastic and metal packaging in the yellow bin or yellow bag. The lesson is not that a deposit system works on its own, but that the deposit scheme and the household collection system were reformed simultaneously, within a coherent regulatory package.
Plastic waste: 80% thermal recovery, 18.8% material recovery
The plastics performance of Austrian waste management is the report’s most critical chapter. Plastic in primary waste amounted to around 1,017,700 tonnes in 2024:
- separately collected, single-polymer plastic waste: 168,600 tonnes (approx. 17%),
- plastic content in mixed waste: 831,800 tonnes (approx. 82%),
- other (polymers in paints and coatings, sludges, plasticisers): 17,300 tonnes (less than 2%).
Of the 840,900 tonnes that went to final treatment:
- thermal recovery: 672,400 tonnes (80.0%),
- material recovery: 157,900 tonnes (18.8%),
- landfilling: 10,500 tonnes (1.2%).
The breakdown explains everything. Single-polymer, separately collected plastic waste is 91% material-recovered, 8% thermally recovered and 1% landfilled. For plastic in mixed waste, by contrast, 97% goes to thermal recovery, 2% to material recovery or use as a reducing agent in the steel industry, and 1% to landfill.
In other words, Austria performs excellently at the output of separate collection – but at the input, four fifths of plastic never gets there. The bottleneck is the collection system, not the processing technology. The same pattern applies to textiles. The largest plastic volumes in mixed waste: municipal and similar commercial waste 321,400 tonnes (38.4%), the light fraction from packaging collection 158,700 tonnes (19.1%), bulky waste 120,900 tonnes (14.5%), and end-of-life tyres and tyre shreds 51,400 tonnes (6.2%).
International material flows are not marginal either: alongside domestic generation of 1,018,000 tonnes, around 369,000 tonnes of plastic waste were imported in 2024 and 329,000 tonnes exported. Input to pre-treatment (sorting and processing) was 927,000 tonnes. The same pattern holds for exports: single-polymer plastic is predominantly material-recovered (around 144,000 tonnes), while plastic in mixed waste is predominantly thermally recovered (around 126,000 tonnes).
Food waste, textiles and electrical waste: where Austrian waste management falls short
Food waste. Around 1,175,206 tonnes of food waste arose across the entire food chain in 2024. The breakdown: private households (including home composting) 629,353 tonnes, processing and manufacturing 234,863 tonnes, restaurants and food services 228,418 tonnes, retail and other forms of food distribution 71,275 tonnes, primary production 11,297 tonnes. Households account for 53.6% of the total – consistent with the 15.7% food content found in residual waste analyses.
Textile waste. Total textile waste amounted to around 223,000 tonnes in 2024: 53,000 tonnes “single-fibre” and 170,000 tonnes in mixed waste. Separately collected used textiles (SN 58107) totalled 47,000 tonnes, of which 43,000 tonnes came from households – 4.7 kg per capita per year. The overwhelming majority is collected via charitable channels.
The treatment route, however, leads essentially abroad: 85% of used textiles (40,000 tonnes) were exported for sorting and processing, with only 3,900 tonnes going to preparation for re-use domestically, 1,400 tonnes to material recovery and 1,600 tonnes to thermal recovery. Fifty-two facilities in Austria sort used textiles, but at 48 sites only visible contaminants and the best-quality “cream ware” are removed by hand – genuine in-depth sorting takes place at just four plants, where material is separated into up to 180 fractions. On the further fate of the exported volume the report can only offer empirical estimates: roughly two thirds can be re-used, a quarter goes to other recycling processes, and around 16% to disposal.
This is precisely the structure that the EU’s textile EPR systems, rolling out from 2025, are intended to address – and it is worth noting before Hungarian implementation that separate collection does not by itself create recycling capacity.
Electrical waste. Here Austria openly reports failure. The 65% minimum collection rate applicable since 2019 under Directive 2012/19/EU was not met in 2024, with a collection rate of 51%. The report offers two explanations. First, a methodological criticism: the indicator measures against the average mass placed on the market over the preceding three years, which does not account for product lifespan – and in recent years notably long-lived products (photovoltaic modules, heat pumps) have entered the market in large numbers.
The European Commission is currently reviewing this calculation method. Second, however, the report also records real losses: around 21,000 tonnes of electrical waste end up in residual waste each year (approximately 1% of residual waste), 20,460 tonnes of large appliances are collected together with ferrous scrap and not reported as WEEE, and valuable components (electronic parts, cables) are removed before handover to the formal collection system.
Biowaste and glass. Around 3.21 million tonnes of biogenic waste were generated in 2024, of which 1.947 million tonnes was separately collected purely biogenic waste and 583,000 tonnes the biogenic content of mixed waste. Glass waste amounted to 461,000 tonnes (343,000 tonnes single-material, 118,000 tonnes in mixed streams), with 264,000 tonnes recycled – 232,000 tonnes of that in three glassworks. Glass collection is served by around 68,000 collection containers with separation of clear and coloured glass.
Hazardous waste. Around 1,435,000 tonnes of hazardous waste arose in 2024, representing 2.1% of Austria’s total waste volume.
Cross-border shipments: Austria is a net waste importer
One rarely discussed feature of Austrian waste management is that the country is a significant net waste importer. According to waste balance reports, around 2.80 million tonnes were shipped out of Austria in 2024 (91% of it to the EU-27) and around 4.62 million tonnes shipped in (92% of it from the EU-27). After consolidation of the data, total outbound shipments amount to 3.04 million tonnes and inbound shipments to 4.94 million tonnes.
For notified shipments, 1,459,275 tonnes arrived in Austria and 1,113,205 tonnes left the country. Around 98% of exports and 86% of imports went to material or thermal recovery. The largest imported items: wood collection fraction 427,582 tonnes, residues from mechanical waste processing 339,970 tonnes, contaminated excavated material 61,789 tonnes, municipal and other sewage sludges 46,620 tonnes.
Among “green list” shipments exempt from notification, Austria exported mainly metal waste (around 1.13 million tonnes), metallurgical slags (371,473 tonnes) and waste paper and board (237,721 tonnes) in 2024; imports were dominated by metal waste (around 1.36 million tonnes) and waste paper (around 1.34 million tonnes). The most important partners in both directions are Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic.
This figure deserves attention because an annual waste import of 4.9 million tonnes is not a by-product but a business model: Austria has built itself into a position of capacity surplus in recovery, and fills that capacity with the region’s waste. It also defines the frame of regional competition.
What can the Hungarian sector learn from the 2024 Austrian waste management data?
Four lessons stand out sharply.
First: a high recycling rate does not solve the plastics problem. Even with a 60.7% municipal recycling rate, Austria stands at only 27.9% for plastic packaging recycling and incinerates 80% of all plastic waste. Strong performance on biowaste and paper “pulls up” the aggregate rate while the most critical material stream stagnates. Anyone optimising the Hungarian system against the aggregate rate will run into the same wall – only from a lower starting point.
Second: the bottleneck is at collection, not at technology. The Austrian data are unambiguous: 91% of single-polymer plastic is material-recovered, while 97% of plastic in mixed waste is incinerated. The same pattern applies to textiles. The question is not the performance of the recycling industry but how much material reaches it in usable condition.
Third: residual waste composition is the real mirror. 33% organics and food, 17% packaging, 16% other recyclable material – even in an advanced system. Hungarian residual waste analyses show a similar pattern, and the performance of the MOHU concession system is worth measuring on exactly this cross-section rather than on separately collected tonnage.
Fourth: a deposit return system needs to be introduced as a package. Austria’s 81.5% first-year collection rate is not the achievement of the deposit alone but of the fact that the DRS launch, the mandatory unified household collection of plastic and metal packaging, and the reusable offer quota all fell into place within a single regulatory cycle. The same regulatory coherence is worth examining when assessing Hungary’s deposit return system.
A closing note on the report’s timing: the Statusbericht published in 2026 covers the 2024 reference year, with a data status of September 2025 (June 2026 for food waste). This two-year lag is inherent to the EU reporting system rather than a sign of Austrian slowness – but it is worth keeping in mind when reading the most recent regulatory changes (the PPWR entering into application, textile EPR) alongside the data. The report cannot yet show their effects; the next two editions will.
Frequently asked questions about Austrian waste management in 2024
How much waste was generated in Austria in 2024?
Austria generated approximately 67 million tonnes of waste in 2024. Of this, 63.4 million tonnes was primary waste and 3.6 million tonnes secondary waste. Excavated material accounted for 56.7% of the total and construction and demolition waste for 16.5%, while municipal waste from households made up only 6.9%. Per capita generation excluding excavated material was 3,158 kg.
What was the municipal recycling rate in Austrian waste management in 2024?
The municipal recycling rate in Austrian waste management was 60.7% in 2024. Actual recycling accounted for 60.1% with 4.28 million tonnes, plus a further 0.6% through preparation for re-use with 42,000 tonnes. The EU target set for 2024 was 55%, so Austria met it with room to spare. Total municipal waste was 7.12 million tonnes, or 775 kg per capita.
Why is plastic packaging recycling in Austria only 27.9%?
Because the overwhelming majority of plastic does not enter the system through separate collection. Single-polymer, separately collected plastic waste is 91% material-recovered, whereas 97% of plastic in mixed waste is incinerated. Some 82% of total plastic arises in mixed waste, which is why the packaging recycling rate has not moved out of the 25–34% band in ten years.
What does Austrian residual waste contain?
Two thirds of Austrian residual waste is material that could in principle be separately collected or avoided. According to the 2018/2019 analyses it comprises 33% organics and food, 17% packaging, 16% other recyclable material, 15% hygiene products, 18% inert material and sorting residue, and 1% hazardous items. Packaging alone in residual waste totals around 250,000 tonnes.
What result did the first year of the Austrian deposit return system deliver?
The Austrian deposit return system achieved a collection rate of 81.5% in its first year, 2025, above the 80% target. Launched on 1 January 2025, the scheme covers plastic beverage bottles and cans of 0.1 to 3 litres at 25 cents per unit. Its launch coincided with mandatory unified household collection of plastic and metal packaging.
Why did Austria fail to meet its WEEE collection target?
Austria missed the 65% EU target in 2024 with a collection rate of 51%. The report cites a partly methodological reason: the indicator measures against the mass placed on the market over the preceding three years, which ignores long-lived products. Real losses also occur, with roughly 21,000 tonnes of electrical waste entering residual waste annually.
Is Austria a net waste importer or exporter?
Austria is a significant net waste importer. In 2024, consolidated data show approximately 4.94 million tonnes of waste entered the country while 3.04 million tonnes left it. Some 92% of imports originated in the EU-27 and 91% of exports were destined there. The most important partners in both directions are Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic.
Source: Umweltbundesamt / BMLUK: Die Bestandsaufnahme der Abfallwirtschaft in Österreich – Statusbericht 2026 für das Referenzjahr 2024, Vienna, 2026. Press release: Österreichs Abfallwirtschaft in Zahlen
