Europe’s fragmented waste taxes risk undermining efforts to reduce landfill, strengthen recycling, and improve energy security, a new report warns.
The 38-country analysis from the RDF Industry Group (RDFIG) calls for a more coherent European approach to residual waste taxation as the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) expands.
The RDFIG wants European and national policymakers to align landfill and Energy from Waste (EfW) taxation to ensure treatment decisions are made based on capacity, efficiency and environmental performance, rather than differences in national tax burdens.
The Uneven Playing Field: How Europe’s Waste Taxes Distort Recovery, Landfill and Trade report maps landfill taxes and restrictions alongside incineration taxes across 38 European countries.
The 2026 analysis identifies landfill taxes in 63% of countries (24 out of 38), with rates ranging from approximately €11 to €154 per tonne.
Incineration taxation is identified in 34% (13 out of 38), with combined tax burdens ranging from €8 to approximately €98 per tonne.
The report argues that the differences in tax rates contribute to comparable recovery facilities being more or less competitive based on their location.
It also warned that additional taxation of recovery without sufficient landfill deterrence risks pushing fiscal incentives against the waste hierarchy.
Robert Corijn, Chair of the RDF Industry Group’s Policy Working Group, commented: “Europe wants to reduce landfill, recover resources and strengthen its energy security. Those ambitions depend on making better use of the infrastructure we already have, across national borders.”
“Waste should move because a facility offers suitable capacity, efficient energy recovery or access to decarbonisation infrastructure. National tax differences should not determine which facilities can compete.”
The report calls for recovery capacity to be considered collectively across Europe, rather than assuming every country must build sufficient facilities to treat all its own residual waste.
It argues that cross-border recovery can connect countries with limited treatment options to existing capacity elsewhere, including facilities supplying district heat or developing carbon capture and storage.
The implications also extend beyond EfW, the report warns. It says that higher taxes on sorting and recycling processes that produce residues increase the cost of producing recycled materials, potentially weakening their competitiveness against virgin alternatives.
The report found that, without wider reform, ETS could leave landfill taxed more leniently than incineration in more than 10 countries, with the tax differential narrowing towards parity in others.
It concludes that the risk is greatest where higher carbon costs on EfW coincide with substantial landfill availability and weak fiscal or regulatory restrictions.
Commenting on the report, Andy Jones, Chair of the RDF Industry Group, said: “Europe has spent decades building a waste hierarchy designed to deliver better environmental outcomes.”
“As carbon pricing expands and fiscal frameworks evolve, we must ensure that taxation supports that hierarchy rather than undermines it.”
