Italians recycle almost 7 out of 10 packaging (68.3%) like the Germans, better than the French and above the EU average. This is what emerges from an analysis of the European Union of cooperatives (Uecoop) on the latest Eurostat data in reference to today's day against food waste, with Italian spending consisting mostly of packaged products, from fruit to cured meats, from meat to coffee, from oil to wine. In Germany 68.5% of packaging is recycled, in France 65.7%, in Austria 65.5% while Spain with 68.8% is just a little better than Italy, while the European record it is up to Belgium with 85.3%.

Packaging recycling, which concerns materials such as cardboard, tetrapak, glass, metal, wood and plastic, is one of the strategic sectors of waste management in large and small cities, underlines Uecoop, with more or less differentiated collection methods but always present next to the containers for the wet. The turnover of the national packaging sector exceeded 33.5 billion euros in 2019 according to an analysis by Uecoop on data from the Italian Packaging Institute. Italy recycles over 9.5 million tons including 399 thousand tons of steel, 51 thousand of aluminum, 3 million and 989 thousand of paper, 1 million and 997 thousand of wood, 1 million and 54 thousand of plastic and 2 million and 69 thousand of glass. Conai data relating to 2019. In Italy, 1 new packaging is created for every 4 old recovered with 20% destined for food use according to Uecoop's processing of Ispra data.

"Attention to waste and the recovery of materials are strategic aspects of the green economy made in Italy which guarantees the country over 3 million employees from services to commerce, from manufacturing production to agriculture with the potential capacity to create 100 thousand new jobs. I work every year according to the latest Unioncamere / Symbola report ", concludes Uecoop.