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In 2023, every resident of Czechia generated an average of 538 kilograms of waste — a figure that outpaces the European Union average, according to an analytical review of the country's waste management system.
Collective take-back schemes play a major role in recycling, organising the return of products at the end of their life cycle and passing them on for further processing. However, the analysis shows that simply having collection points isn't enough to solve the problem: people often have no idea where to bring their used items or what happens to them afterwards.
The issue is especially acute when it comes to bulky items, where transport, storage and repair costs become the main obstacles. A telling example is the pilot project "Furniture in Circulation," which over three months in 2025 allowed Czechs to hand in used furniture. During that time, more than 5,000 items were collected, a fifth of which were deemed suitable for reuse — yet only 8% of the total actually made it back into circulation.
A similar picture emerges with textiles. According to a survey by Mendel University in Brno, conducted around the turn of 2023–2024 as part of the "Smart and Sustainable" project in cooperation with Charles University, 37% of Czechs buy new clothes at least once a month. Given the rising consumption of textiles, separate textile collection points have become mandatory in Czechia since the start of 2025. Yet, as Olga Dočalová of the Union of Towns and Municipalities of the Czech Republic points out, people often drop off torn or damaged items there that should instead go for recycling — while processing capacity for that remains woefully inadequate.
Still, reuse is gradually gaining momentum in the country. According to the first joint report from the Reuse Federation, which brings together reuse centres, furniture banks, charity shops and swap initiatives, the number of items given a second life rose from 222,000 in 2022 to over 540,000 in 2025.
Read also: Brno: What to See and Where to Go
Source: ekolist.cz
