Iceland cannot trace all its plastic waste

Iceland’s Waste Management Fund says it cannot account for every waste stream from the country, but all sorted plastic packaging collected from households is sent to Sweden for further sorting before going to recycling facilities in the European Union or to energy recovery. The fund gave the details in a statement responding to New York Times reporting on Icelandic plastic found on Turkish shores, mbl.is reported.

The New York Times said its journalists found European plastic waste along canals and coastlines around Adana in southern Turkey, including an Icelandic Ísey skyr container, French mozzarella packaging, Dutch wet wipes, Spanish tortellini packaging, German fertiliser packaging and a British ice cream tub.

The fund said some plastic packaging that ends up in Turkey consists of coloured and clear plastic film shipped through intermediaries in the Netherlands. It is mainly plastic used by industry and businesses, such as transport packaging.

According to the New York Times, European countries sent more than 700,000 tonnes of plastic waste to Turkey last year, a record based on trade data. The waste was supposed to go to Turkey’s recycling industry. Much was recycled into products such as plastic bags, irrigation pipes and pellets for manufacturing, but a substantial amount ended up in the environment alongside Turkish waste.

Municipalities are responsible for collecting household waste and contract service providers to collect sorted plastic packaging. Those providers sell it to Stena Recycling, which receives the material at a port in Iceland. Stena sorts it at its facility in Lanna, Sweden, and has confirmed in writing to the fund that all material sorted there goes directly to EU recycling facilities or to energy recovery in the Nordic countries, without intermediaries.

Residues left by recyclers that cannot be recycled are used to generate energy at paper and cement factories or power plants within the EU. The fund said the quality of the plastic determines whether it is recycled or used for energy recovery.

The share of plastic packaging collected in Iceland that was recycled rose from 27 per cent in 2024 to 39 per cent in 2025, largely because of improved sorting by households and businesses, the fund said. Over the same period, Iceland’s recycling target increased from 22.5 per cent to 50 per cent.