![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/7113627-1024x683.jpg\")
Greece is also on track to fail on its obligation to recycle 55 percent of municipal waste and 65 percent of packaging waste this year. | Orestis Panagiotou\/EPA<\/p>\nThe company had won the tender for the project despite suggesting that the kiosks would be around five times more expensive than what it could cost based on market prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Greece is also on track to fail on its obligation to recycle 55 percent of municipal waste and 65 percent of packaging waste this year. | Orestis Panagiotou\/EPA<\/p>\n
\u201cIt cannot be confirmed whether EDSNA investigated\u00a0what a reasonable\u00a0budget for the recycling centers would be, given that the market research it conducted and referred to, did not concern at least two independent [companies], but two\u00a0[companies]\u00a0with a common interest and an exclusive relationship, which then, of course, submitted the only bid in the tender in question and won the contract,\u201d a separate report said, according to local media reports<\/a> at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Following the second audit, completed in July and\u00a0first revealed<\/a>\u00a0by Greece\u2019s newspaper Kathimerini, a second \u20ac3 million fine was imposed, half the amount of EU funds used for the recycling centers in the three regions, as the report notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bad students<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n Greece\u2019s poor track record with recycling and respecting EU laws on waste is notorious. \u00a0<\/p>\n According to 2022 data<\/a> from the European statistical office Eurostat, the municipal waste recycling rate in Greece hovered around 17 percent, compared to the EU average of 49 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n Greece is also on track to fail on its obligation to recycle 55 percent of municipal waste and 65 percent of packaging waste this year, the European Commission found\u00a0in its 2025 environmental implementation review<\/a>. The country had already \u201cmissed the 2020 target to recycle 50 percent of its municipal waste by a great margin\u201d the review says. \u00a0<\/p>\n In the EU, Greece is one of five members paying fines for not complying with environmental policies. To date, the country has sent about \u20ac230 million to Brussels to make up for these violations, according to the review. \u00a0<\/p>\n Out of the 19 open infringement cases against Greece on environmental matters, six are related to waste management<\/a>, from illegal landfilling to not properly applying laws on packaging waste.\u00a0Local NGOs, meanwhile, have repeatedly warned of systemic disorders<\/a> in the sector.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The company had won the tender for the project despite suggesting that the kiosks would be around five…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":173732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[3432,746,6335,24918,135,398,7839,22750,8932,12578,21978,1183,159,67,132,68,16025],"class_list":{"0":"post-173731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-data","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-exclusive","11":"tag-greece","12":"tag-markets","13":"tag-media","14":"tag-ngos","15":"tag-packaging","16":"tag-plastics","17":"tag-recycling","18":"tag-regions-cohesion","19":"tag-research","20":"tag-science","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-waste"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115088157949126199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}