Global Recycling Day 2025

Submitted by: Two Sides Nordics March 25, 2025

Recycling remains one of the world’s most important ways to preserve the planet’s precious recourses.

Around the world, every day of every year is designated an official ‘Day of’. From the International Day of Peaceful Coexistence (28 Jan) and World Pulses Day (10 Feb) to World UFO Day (June 24) and International Check Your Windscreen Wipers Day (16 Nov), you can’t get through 24 hours without an observance of something.

But while some of those days could be seen as more flippant, Global Recycling Day has a number of very serious aims, all designed to increase recycling across the world to preserve its precious resources. Created in 2018, Global Recycling Day is designed to help recognise and celebrate the importance recycling plays in preserving our precious primary resources and securing the future of our planet.

Happening on March 18, the day’s key message is to implore everyone to think about what they throw away, seeing not waste, but opportunity. As a main pillar of the circular economy, recycling affects us all and has the power to completely transform the way we use our resources and reverse climate change.

“Each year the ‘Seventh Resource’ saves over 700 million tonnes in CO2 emissions and this is projected to increase to one billion tons by 2030,” says the official Global Recycling Day website. “There is no doubt recycling is on the front line in the war to save the future of our planet and humanity.”

New Recycling Legislation

A number of new UK and European policies are coming into force this year, demonstrating that the importance of recycling is being acted upon at the highest level. New legislation includes the European Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), which aims to reduce packaging waste in the EU and make all packaging recyclable, and the UK’s Extended Producer Responsibility scheme, which looks to improve recycling outcomes and reduce waste.

With such wide-ranging regulations, the UK and Europe are set to improve their recycling rates even further. According to the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI), Europe had a 79.3% recycling rate for discarded paper and board in 2023, with 82% of that material consumed in Europe. “We have been doubling our recycling since the 1990s,” said Jori Ringman, Director General of CEPI.

People Prefer Paper

Of course, the success of recycling schemes depends a lot on consumers and their enthusiasm for sustainable living and playing their part to reduce the impacts of climate change. Fortunately, that enthusiasm seems to be increasing, with recycling regarded as one of their most important concerns.

A recent report by Pro Carton has found that 62% of Europeans state that climate change is the top factor influencing their behaviour, with 57% saying that living sustainably has become more important to them over the past year. Pro Carton’s 2025 European Consumer Packaging Perceptions Survey conducted interviews with over 5,000 consumers across the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain to explore shifting attitudes towards sustainability and packaging preferences.

The study also found a clear preference for sustainable packaging solutions, with 89% of consumers stating they would choose cartonboard over plastic when given the option, with 65% citing ease of recyclability as a deciding factor, alongside resealability and the use of natural, renewable materials.

All of which adds up to a strong future for recycling. As long as people understand its importance and governments continue to legislate for it, saving our resources could end up saving us all.

For more information about Global Recycling Day, go to globalrecyclingday.com

To read the full Pro Carton report, go to procarton.com