[throwaway5752]

I'm going to assume good faith and spell this out plainly:

1. People in the US, Europe, Australia, et al. "recycle" plastic.

2. The recycling companies in these regions export commingled and low quality plastics to reprocessors in China

3. The commingled low quality recycled plastic can't be reprocessed economically, and ends up in a river.

At any rate, the EU number you cited as well as NA numbers are about to rise, because China cut the world off from dumping it's garbage there: https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-i...

That is probably the reason for this plastic disposables ban, and more that are to come.