In recent years, plastic waste generation has become a prime concern in the global political arena.
A dedicated strategy on plastics was adopted at EU level, leading to the Single-Use Plastics Directive. Nonetheless, plastic waste management data show that achieving a circular economy for plastics in the EU is still a long way off. Available studies suggest that plastic waste generation may stay high in the future or even increase without ambitious circularity policies.
This report looks at the challenges associated with plastic waste generation and discusses the potential for using chemical recycling technologies as part of an ecosystem of solutions for increasing the circularity of plastics. It is based on evidence collected through desk-research.
CircEUlar is a four-year European Research and Innovation Action that will develop new modelling approaches for analysing circularity from a systems perspective.
The Circular Republic Festival will take place from 15 to 18 November 2023. Join top circular economy visionaries for innovation, networking and inspiration. Showcase initiatives, meet relevant players and be inspired by good practices. Experience keynote speeches, panel discussions, workshops and online collaboration. We want to accelerate the circular economy together!
In view of the ongoing regulatory developments in the field of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, this in-person event on 4 July will discuss the potential of using chemical recycling technologies as part of an ecosystem of solutions for increasing circularity of plastics.
The first episode of the Biocircularcities Trilogy unveils the story behind the success of the BBI-JU Biocircularcities project or how partners supported a transition of the pilot territories toward circular bioeconomy through a collaborative approach.
Siptex is the world’s first large-scale facility for sorting textiles by colour and fibre composition through near-infrared light to handle large flows and produce textile fractions suited to different recycling processes. As textile waste is a growing concern around the world, innovative solutions are required to tackle this environmental problem.
The EU has set ambitious targets to improve municipal waste management. EU Member States need effective strategies and policy instruments to achieve these targets.
This briefing provides an overview of some of the main instruments used across the EU and the performance of Member States so far.
Economic instruments can be useful policy tools for waste prevention and sustainable waste management. This is because they can make preferred management options, such as recycling, cheaper than or at least cost-competitive with their alternatives.
Like economic instruments, well-designed separate collection systems for municipal waste are a key enabler of high recycling rates and the collection of recyclables of adequate quality.
Europe aims to become a circular economy. To encourage this, the EU has set targets for the 27 Member States to increase recycling and reduce landfilling. Specifically, by 2025, 55% of municipal waste and 65% of packaging waste must be prepared for re-use or recycled.
This briefing assesses Member States’ prospects of meeting these targets and its findings constitute the basis of the European Commission’s 2023 early warning report.
This document compiles a set of country-specific reports describing the progress made by each European country towards waste prevention and decoupling of waste generation. Each report explains their national waste prevention programmes and food waste prevention and product reuse policies with a view to the circular economy.
Separate links are offered in the document for each country report.
This report proposes a new framework for monitoring waste prevention. The framework consists of three clusters of indicators:
the system where prevention is implemented
policy enablers focusing on waste prevention measures, and
waste prevention outcomes.
Given that waste prevention occurs over time, this report seeks to assess longer term trends in waste prevention.
This comprehensive monitoring framework allows for a broader understanding of waste generation and prevention. However, the data collected were not sufficient for an in-depth analysis of waste prevention progress or for assessing the effectiveness of specific prevention measures. For a deeper analysis, more specific data and information need to be collected across EU countries in a systematic and harmonised way.