ATHENS – Failure to meet plastic packaging recycling standards set by the Europen Union will cost Greece 127 million euros ($143.53 million) in fines over that poor performance.

The EU said penalties are to push its 27 member states to meet the recycling goals, with successive Greek governments making promises to increase athe practice but then backing away.

A study on plastics in the Greek economy, prepared by think tank IOBE on behalf of the Association of Hellenic Plastics Industries (SVPE) found that some 43,000 tons of plastic packaging isn’t buried or recycled annually.

It’s also common for Greeks and residents to toss recyclables in rubbish dumpsters instead of opening a recycling bin right next to it and governments haven’t met goals to improve performance.

An earlier government said that by 2020 that 74 percent of waste from landfills would be diverted to recycling, including 70 percent of plastic packaging but that wasn’t met.

That was despite proposing a 4-stream waste collection system to increase the supply of recyclable plastic, and introducing a landfilling tax, although the latest figures were only from 2018 and showed only 41.5 percent of plastic was being recycled then.