The latest Eurostat figures show that a little less than one-third (31 per cent) of Ireland's plastic waste was recycled in 2017, up from 24 per cent in 2005 or a rise of seven percentage points.

Across the EU, an average of 42 per cent of plastic waste was recycled in 2017, also up from 24 per cent in 2005, or a rise of 18 percentage points.

Lithuania (74 per cent) had the highest rate of plastic waste recycling in the EU in 2017 while Malta (24 per cent) had the lowest.

In the EU, an estimated 42 per cent of plastic packaging waste was recycled in 2017. In seven EU member states, more than half of the plastic packaging waste generated was recycled in 2017.

Compared with 2005, the recycling rate of plastic packaging waste increased by 18 percentage points (pp) in the EU (from 24 per cent in 2005 to 42 per cent in 2017). This increasing trend is observed at varied levels in all EU member states, except Croatia.

In 2017, the highest recycling rate of plastic packaging waste was recorded in Lithuania (74 per cent), ahead of Bulgaria (65 per cent), Cyprus (62 per cent, 2016 data), Slovenia (60 per cent), Czechia (59 per cent), Slovakia (52 per cent) and the Netherlands (50 per cent).

In contrast, less than a third of plastic packaging waste was recycled in Malta (24 per cent, 2016 data), Estonia, France and Finland (each 27 per cent), Ireland (31 per cent), Hungary (32 per cent), Luxembourg and Austria (33 per cent).