In 25 years, Italy has gone from waste emergency to recycling excellence, and today Italy is the European leader in waste recycling, and the recycling industry has experienced steady quantitative and qualitative growth. In 1997, separate collection of municipal waste was only 9.4 percent and 80 percent of waste ended up in landfills.

Only 21% of industrial waste was recycled and 33% ended up in landfills. In 2020, separate collection of municipal waste reached 63% and landfilling dropped to 20%, while recycling of industrial waste exceeded 70% and landfilling dropped to 6%. These are some of the figures from The Recycling in Italy 2022 Report.

This change in waste management has fueled the growth of Italy's recycling industry, which has become a relevant and strategic sector of the national production system that has 4,800 companies, 236,365 employees, generates an added value of 10.5 billion (increased by 31 percent from 2010 to 2020) and produces large quantities of recycled materials.

These are 12million 287 thousand tons of metals, mostly steel; 5million 213 thousand tons of paper and cardboard; 2million 287 thousand tons of chipboard; 2million 229 thousand tons of recycled glass; 1million 734 thousand tons of compost and 972 thousand tons of recycled plastic. Overall, recycled material production increased by 13.3 percent between 2014 and 2020. Italy, in 2020 recycled 72 percent of all waste, municipal and special-industrial, a European record, (53 percent the EU average and 55 percent that of Germany), with the rate of use of recycled materials out of total materials consumed at 21.6 percent (EU average 12.8 percent, 13.4 percent in Germany).

For packaging waste management, Italy is also a European excellence in recycling with more than 10.5 million tons sent for recycling, with a rate of 73.3% in 2021, higher not only than the European target of 65% in 2025 but, with 9 years ahead, also the European target of 70% in 2030.