Eurostat Packaging Waste dataset (env_waspac) JSON API

Europe's official answer to the question "how much packaging did each country generate, and where did it actually go?" env_waspac is the statistical office of the European Commission's annual packaging-waste time series, and Datadory normalizes it into analysis-ready rows: quantities generated, recovered, recycled, energy-recovered, repaired and landfilled, split across eleven material codes from total packaging down to steel-from-incineration-bottom-ash, for the EU-27 aggregate, every member state, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Northern Ireland, 1997 through 2023 - roughly 97,000 populated country-year-operation cells.

Why analysts care: this is the measurement layer underneath the EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive. The dataset carries not just raw tonnes but dedicated recycling-rate series computed against both the 2008 target definition and the 2025-and-onwards definition - the two denominators that decide whether a member state clears its legal obligation. When a headline says a country hit or missed its packaging recycling target, the number being quoted comes from this cube. Get a sample of this dataset cut to your countries and materials, or start from the paper & plastic packaging products & materials hub.

Four observations exactly as they land - one per-capita generation figure, one absolute tonnage, one national figure, one recovery cell:

geo       : EU27_2020
waste     : W150102   (Plastic packaging)
wst_oper  : GEN       (Waste generated)
unit      : KG_HAB
time      : 2022
value     : 36.24

geo       : EU27_2020
waste     : W150102   (Plastic packaging)
wst_oper  : GEN       (Waste generated)
unit      : T         (Tonnes)
time      : 2023
value     : 15,830,350

geo       : DE
waste     : W150102   (Plastic packaging)
wst_oper  : GEN       (Waste generated)
unit      : KG_HAB
time      : 2023
value     : 37.51

geo       : FR
waste     : W150102   (Plastic packaging)
wst_oper  : RCV       (Recovery)
unit      : T
time      : 2023
value     : <recovery tonnage, reported alongside 12,196,427 t for the EU-27 aggregate>

Read the four together and you have the whole analytical trick of this dataset in miniature: the same plastic-packaging stream expressed per person and in absolute tonnes, at aggregate-EU and single-country level, across generation and recovery operations - so per-capita intensity arguments and absolute-volume arguments come from one consistent cube instead of two reconciled spreadsheets. Every row carries its full dimension key (geo, waste, wst_oper, unit, time), which means pivots, joins and per-capita conversions are mechanical rather than forensic.

Seven fields define the cube - six dimensions and one measured value. All seven are verified against the dataset's own dimension schema, so nothing below is inferred from column names.

Dimensions and value

• freq - time frequency; a single category, annual.
• waste - the packaging material code: total packaging, paper and cardboard, plastic, wooden, metallic (with aluminium and steel splits plus incineration-bottom-ash variants for both metals), glass, and other packaging.
• wst_oper - the waste-management operation: generated, recovery (with energy recovery from packaging waste and other recovery as explicit siblings), recycling in total / in the Member State / in other Member States / outside the EU, and repair.
• unit - kilograms per capita, tonnes, rate against the 2008 target, rate against the 2025 target onwards, or plain percentage.
• geo - the reporting entity: the EU-27 aggregate, all 27 member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Northern Ireland.
• time - reference year, 1997 through 2023.
• value - the observed figure for that combination, in the selected unit.

Full definitions and examples for all seven sit in the dictionary table below. A handful of presentation-layer attributes - the label strings attached to each dimension code and the header metadata that timestamps the release - ride along with the payload rather than as standalone columns; they are folded into any delivery on request rather than promised blind here.

Three chips summarize the footprint:

• Geography: EU-27 aggregate plus all 27 member states, with Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway riding along under the EFTA agreement and Northern Ireland reported separately - 32 reporting entities on one consistent methodology.
• Time frame: annual reference years 1997 through 2023, a 27-year panel deep enough to span the original Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive targets and the run-up to the 2025 milestone.
• Granularity: one observation per country x year x material x operation x unit - the finest public grain at which EU packaging flows are officially comparable.

Set against the wider catalog - average quality score 7.81 across all 1,744 datasets Datadory catalogs - this slice scores 9/10, on official provenance, a six-dimension schema that survives pivots intact, and verified field definitions. Where it ranks in the industry: best paper & plastic packaging products & materials datasets.

API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.

Name the countries, materials and operations you want when you request the sample - the full EU-27 panel, or a slice cut to your footprint, say Germany's plastic-packaging generation series alone. The sample ships first either way; the ongoing feed lands on whatever cadence your models need, and the field dictionary above travels unchanged across every channel.

Ranked by how directly a 27-year, six-dimension packaging ledger answers their day job:

1. Market researchers & consultants. The citable base layer for every European packaging-sustainability study: generation and recycling measured one way across 30-odd economies since 1997. The dual-denominator recycling rates let you write "country X met its 2008-definition target but misses the 2025 bar" with numbers behind it instead of advocacy-group estimates.
2. ESG, regulatory-affairs & sustainability teams. PPWR exposure starts with knowing where your markets stand against the 2025 recycling targets. This is the official scoreboard - read your operating countries' trajectories before regulators read them to you. Deeper workflows on competitive intel product teams use cases.
3. Investors & quants. Recycled-content mandates make packaging recycling rates a supply signal for rPET, recycled fibre and recycled aluminium. Country-year trajectories feed pricing models for recyclate and for virgin resin substitution. More on investors & quants use cases.
4. Policy analysts & academics. A 27-year panel with explicit operation splits - including recycling exported to other Member States versus outside the EU - supports real methodological work on whether reported recycling reflects domestic reprocessing capacity or trade arithmetic.
5. Circular-economy operators. Benchmark your collection and reprocessing footprint against official country baselines, and track which member states' streams are growing fast enough to justify capacity.

Market Researchers & Consultants get the citation-grade original - the dataset every EU packaging market study footnotes - with per-capita and absolute units in the same cube, so intensity charts and volume charts never disagree. Investors & Quants get 27 reference years of material-level supply signals feeding recycled-commodity theses, with the export-adjusted recycling splits separating genuine reprocessing from accounting. Competitive Intelligence, ESG & Regulatory Teams get the official PPWR scoreboard by country, updated as member states report, ready to drop into compliance dashboards. Journalists & Academics get the primary statistical record rather than someone else's chart of it - quotable, attributable, and stable enough to survive peer review.

Notes that pair well with this page:

• Paper & Plastic Packaging Products & Materials hub - the pooled industry view, from EPA material-specific series to association guidance libraries.
• European Environment Agency - plastics topic data - the thematic companion: plastics-specific flows, waste-generation context and circular-economy indicators that sit above this dataset's packaging-only frame. The head-to-head lives at env_waspac vs EEA plastics topic data.
• APR plastics recycling data & reports - the North American counterpart: post-consumer recycling tonnage by resin from the Association of Plastic Recyclers, useful whenever a transatlantic comparison needs both sides measured.
• NAPCOR PET packaging recycling & market data - PET-specific US recycling rates and thermoform market analysis; the narrowest useful lens on the resin this dataset tracks as W150102.
• US EPA Containers & Packaging: Product-Specific Data - the American federal mirror: containers-and-packaging generation, recycling, combustion and landfilling back to 1960.
• Provenance note - published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Commission, as dataset env_waspac (Packaging waste by waste management operation). Each response self-describes with a header timestamp, so any delivered slice carries its own vintage marker.