How much waste does Austria produce? For 2026 the figure works out at an estimated 73.0 million tonnes, or roughly 161 billion pounds.
The last year anyone measured is 2022, when Austria generated 73.1 million tonnes. Six tonnes in every ten were soil dug out of the ground, mostly on building sites, a share almost three times the EU's.
Austria recycled 62.8% of its municipal waste in 2023 and sent only 1.7% of it to landfill. Its total waste still rose at every reading from 2010 to 2022, because the soil and rubble that make up most of it never pass through a household bin.
Austria's rising waste totals (2010-2026)
Eurostat measures national waste every two years, so the table runs on even years, carried forward from 2022 to 2026, with each change measured against the previous reading.
| Year | Tonnes | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 73,048,047 | +0.03 million (+0.04%) |
| 2024 | 73,020,395 | -0.03 million (-0.04%) |
| 2022 | 73,050,026 | +4.1 million (+6.0%) |
| 2020 | 68,906,034 | +3.2 million (+4.9%) |
| 2018 | 65,666,128 | +4.4 million (+7.3%) |
| 2016 | 61,225,037 | +5.4 million (+9.6%) |
| 2014 | 55,868,298 | +7.8 million (+16.3%) |
| 2012 | 48,045,089 | +1.2 million (+2.7%) |
| 2010 | 46,799,579 | baseline |
Note: Eurostat's waste generation collection, covering all economic activities plus households. 2022 is the newest year it has published, so the 2024 and 2026 rows are our own estimates, explained in the next section.
Austria's total grew at all six readings from 2010 to 2022, by 26.3 million tonnes or 56.1% in twelve years. The largest step came between 2012 and 2014, when it rose by 7.8 million tonnes.
What pushed the line up
Two kinds of waste did almost all of the climbing. Between them they account for 94.4% of the rise from 2010 to 2022.
- Soil. Up 19.1 million tonnes, from 24.7 million to 43.8 million, a rise of 77.0%.
- Rubble from building and demolition. Up 5.7 million tonnes, from 5.8 million to 11.5 million, almost double.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) reaches the same finding in its 2025 profile of Austria. Leave out the big mineral wastes, it notes, and Austria's waste has stayed roughly stable.
How the 2026 estimate for Austria is worked out
The two newest rows in the table are estimates built on the measured 2022 figure. Households move with a measured guide, and every other part of the total is held at its 2022 level, because no guide has tracked it.
The test is the same one run on every country in this series. Each sector's waste is set beside the activity index that should drive it, over periods Eurostat has already measured. The table shows the 2020 to 2022 test.
| Sector | Waste | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Construction | +6.2% | +9.5% |
| Manufacturing | +11.6% | +17.6% |
| Households | -3.7% | -2.4% |
Note: Eurostat's waste generation collection, 2020 to 2022. The guides are Eurostat's construction and manufacturing output indices, and for households municipal waste per person times average population.
Construction waste missed its index by more than five percentage points in three of the four periods since 2014, sometimes above it and sometimes below. Manufacturing missed by 8.5 and 6.0 points in two of them.
Households stayed within 1.5 points of their guide in every period since 2014 except across a 2020 counting change, so they are the one part that moves. They make up 6.1% of the total, and the 2026 estimate lands 2,000 tonnes under 2022, at 73.0 million tonnes.
The range around that figure
Since 2004 Austria's total has moved by between 14.7% down and 27.4% up over four years, which puts 2026 between 62.3 million and 93.1 million tonnes.
The upper half of that range is where the recent trend points. Had the total kept rising at its slowest four-year pace since 2010, 11.2%, it would reach about 81.2 million tonnes in 2026.
Austria in Europe and its new collection rules
Austria generated 3.3% of the EU's 2.23 billion tonnes of waste in 2022, the 11th-largest total among the 27 member states. Per person it produced 8,079 kg, the seventh-highest figure in the EU, against an average of 4,981 kg.
Soil alone came to 4,844 kg per Austrian, almost the EU's entire per-person total. Part of any gap between two countries is also down to how each one counts its waste, so the per-person order is a rough guide rather than a league table.
On the household side, the EEA's profile lists three changes to how Austria collects packaging.
- One yellow bin everywhere. Since 1 January 2023 the yellow bin or yellow bag takes all plastic packaging, drinks cartons and light composite packaging in every part of Austria.
- Plastic and metal together. From 2025 plastic and metal packaging go in the same collection nationwide, a step Carinthia, Lower Austria, Salzburg and Vienna took in 2023.
- A deposit on drinks. Single-use plastic drinks bottles and drinks cans carry a deposit from the start of 2025, with dairy drinks left out.
Why is most of Austria's waste soil?
Counted by what it is made of, here is each type's share of Austria's 2022 total, set beside its share across the EU as a whole.
| Type of waste | Austria | EU |
|---|---|---|
| Soil | 60.0% | 22.1% |
| Building and demolition rubble | 15.8% | 14.6% |
| Household and similar waste | 3.4% | 5.8% |
| Scrap iron and steel | 3.4% | 3.4% |
| Paper and cardboard | 2.5% | 2.0% |
| Mining and other mineral waste | 0.6% | 25.1% |
| Everything else | 14.4% | 27.0% |
Note: Eurostat's waste generation collection, 2022 reference year. Shares are rounded, and the Austrian lines add up to the full total of 73,050,026 tonnes.
Austria recorded 43.8 million tonnes of soil in 2022, the third-highest share of any EU country after Luxembourg (67.9%) and Slovenia (60.4%). All but 12,000 tonnes of it came from construction and demolition, where it is dug out before building starts.
Construction makes three quarters of the total
Counted by who produced it, construction generated 56.0 million tonnes, 76.6% of Austria's total. Only Malta, at 77.7%, had a higher construction share among the 27 member states, against 38.7% across the EU.
Manufacturing came next with 7.9% and households with 6.1%, both below their EU shares. Water, sewerage and waste businesses produced 3.9%, against 10.5% across the EU.
Almost no mining waste
Mining and quarrying produced 22.4% of all waste recorded in the EU in 2022. In Austria they produced 20,050 tonnes, 0.03% of the total, which is why the mining line in the table above is so small.
Austrian household waste and the 2020 counting change
Municipal waste is the slice most readers picture, the household bins plus similar waste from shops and offices. Austria generated 782 kg of municipal waste per person in 2023, the newest year it has reported, against an EU average of 511 kg.
Most of that gap is counting. In 2020 Austria widened its figure to take in similar waste from services and businesses, which lifted it from 588 kg per person in 2019 to 834 kg, a break in the series the EEA's profile points out.
Countries still differ in how much commercial waste they count as municipal, so part of any gap between two of them is a counting difference rather than a behavioural one.
Packaging waste in Austria by material
Packaging is the part of the pile that extended producer responsibility covers, and the part a company selling into Austria pays for directly.
Austria generated 1,391,405 tonnes of packaging waste in 2023, the newest year on record, 5.7% less than in 2022. That works out at 152 kg per person, below the EU average of 178 kg.
The table below breaks the 2023 total down by material, with the share of each that was recycled.
| Material | Tonnes | Recycled |
|---|---|---|
| Paper and cardboard | 613,301 | 79.6% |
| Glass | 313,236 | 79.3% |
| Plastic | 294,844 | 26.9% |
| Wood | 103,815 | 35.8% |
| Metal | 63,870 | 83.3% |
| Other | 2,339 | 0.0% |
Note: Eurostat's packaging waste collection, 2023 reference year, with recycling shares calculated on the basis set for the 2025 targets. The six lines add up to the reported total.
Paper and cardboard made up 44.1% of the Austrian packaging total. Most of the 2023 fall came from glass, down 19.8% on 2022, and Eurostat gives no reason for it.
Who pays for packaging in Austria?
A company that puts packaging on the Austrian market joins a licensed collection and recovery system, which charges it by the packaging it declares.
The environment ministry's list from September 2023 names six systems for household packaging, including ARA and Reclay, and five for commercial packaging.
The systems then report their members' packaging to EDM, Austria's EPR register, which Umweltbundesamt runs for the ministry. Only a few producers, such as businesses that import packaging for their own use, file in EDM themselves.
A seller abroad shipping straight to Austrian end users has to appoint an Austrian authorised representative for EPR, and the rule already applied before 12 August 2026.
The full set of duties is on the EPR rules for selling into Austria, and the packaging rules in detail on packaging EPR in Austria.
Austria against the EU packaging targets
Austria recycled 64.9% of its packaging in 2023, against 67.4% across the EU. That put it 13th among the 23 member states with a figure for that year. Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and Poland had not reported one.
The EU packaging regulation sets recycling targets in its Article 52, one wave due by the end of 2025 and one by the end of 2030. The table sets Austria's 2023 rates against both waves.
| Packaging | Targets 2025 / 2030 | Austrian rate |
|---|---|---|
| All packaging | 65% / 70% | 64.9% |
| Paper and cardboard | 75% / 85% | 79.6% |
| Glass | 70% / 75% | 79.3% |
| Ferrous metals | 70% / 80% | 97.9% |
| Aluminium | 50% / 60% | 61.9% |
| Wood | 25% / 30% | 35.8% |
| Plastic | 50% / 55% | 26.9% |
Note: Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Article 52(1). Austria's rates are Eurostat's, 2023 reference year.
On its 2023 figures Austria met five of the seven targets due by 2025. The overall rate was 0.1 percentage points short at 64.9% against 65%, and plastic was 23.1 points short.
For 2030 it met four of the seven, with paper and cardboard 5.4 points short on top of the overall rate and plastic.
Austria's plastic packaging gap
Austria recycled 26.9% of its plastic packaging in 2023, against 41.7% across the EU and a 2025 target of 50%. The EEA's profile notes that the rate had been slowly falling since 2010, to 25% in 2022.
The same profile says Austria needs further measures to reach the plastic target. It names a duty to collect plastic packaging across the country and public funding for new sorting and recycling plants as the steps already taken.
Next to nothing goes to landfill
In 2023 Austria sent 1.7% of its municipal waste to landfill. It recycled 62.8% and burned 35.5% for energy recovery, against the EU's 47.9% and 25.3%.
EU rules require the landfilled share to fall to 10% or less by 2035, a level Austria was already well under in 2023. Producers comparing the tools that prepare their Austrian packaging declarations can start with the EPR software built for Austria.
Frequently asked questions about Austria's waste
Below are the eight questions that come up most often about Austria's waste figures.
How much waste does Austria produce each year?
Austria is estimated to produce around 73.0 million tonnes of waste in 2026, level with the 73.1 million measured in 2022. That was the 11th-largest total in the EU, at 8,079 kg per person against an EU average of 4,981 kg.
Can Austria's waste be compared with other countries?
Only with care. Eurostat notes that differences between countries reflect consumption and wealth but also how much commercial and administrative waste each one counts as municipal, so part of any gap between two countries is counting practice rather than rubbish.
Why is so much of Austria's waste soil?
Most of it is earth dug out on building sites and recorded as construction waste. Austria recorded 43.8 million tonnes of soil in 2022, 60.0% of its total, against 22.1% across the EU.
Why is Austria's total waste rising?
Soil and building rubble grew at every reading from 2010 to 2022 and account for 94.4% of the rise. The EEA notes that Austria's waste has stayed roughly stable once those big mineral wastes are left out.
Why did Austrian municipal waste per person jump in 2020?
Austria changed what it counts. From 2020 it added similar waste from services and businesses to its municipal figure, which lifted it from 588 kg to 834 kg per person. Austrian households did not suddenly throw out 42% more.
How much packaging waste does Austria generate?
Austria generated 1,391,405 tonnes of packaging waste in 2023, or 152 kg per person, below the EU average of 178 kg. Paper and cardboard made up 44.1% of it, followed by glass and plastic.
Does Austria meet the EU packaging recycling targets?
On its 2023 figures Austria met five of the seven targets due by 2025. Its overall rate was 0.1 points short at 64.9%, and plastic packaging was 23.1 points short at 26.9% against a target of 50%.
Does Austria have a deposit on bottles and cans?
Yes. Since the start of 2025 single-use plastic drinks bottles and drinks cans carry a deposit in Austria, paid back when the empty container is returned. Plastic bottles for dairy drinks are left out, as the EEA's profile of Austria notes.
Images: Asurnipal
