Save the date: Circular Week 2026 take place 26-31 October. This conference will bring together cities, practitioners, researchers, businesses, citizens and policymakers working on circular and climate-resilient urban transformation.
The ECESP's annual conference will take place in April! A key event in the circular economy calendar, it will be spread over two days and bring together policy makers and the people making the circular economy a reality on the ground.
With the work programme for this mandate approved, we now have the list of ECESP leadership groups! Read all about what they will be focusing on and what they aim to achieve.
On 29 January, the European Committee of the Regions hosted Municipal Waste Europe for a partnership event on textile waste, taking stock of the first year of mandatory separate collection of textile waste in the EU.
Speakers discussed challenges on the supply and demand sides, along with the role of policy. Read all about it!
Hazards Out! aims to raise awareness about the mandatory separate collection of household hazardous waste and support local authorities and other relevant stakeholders with establishing effective management strategies for it.
This workshop will focus on the operational aspects of HHW management, exploring how hazardous household waste is safely transported, temporarily stored, treated, and, where possible, recovered.
This interactive workshop will explore where investment, leadership and effort can deliver the greatest circular economy impact in 2026.
With four panellists including Ladeja Godina Košir, chair of the ECESP, it will look at the circular economy in real-world conditions, circular education programmes and how EU-Australia cooperation can drive on the circular economy.
CE-PRINCE (Central Europe Green PRocurement and Innovation Network for Circular Economy) is an Interreg Central Europe project. It aims to standardise circular procurement approaches across central European countries and industries.
Every year, our global economy consumes around 100 billion tonnes of resources — three quarters of which it cannot replenish. This reliance on a constant flow of virgin raw materials leaves our economies increasingly exposed to price shocks, supply disruptions and the universal inefficiencies of resource waste. One direct way to relieve this pressure is to keep materials circulating at their highest value.
Part of a policy series on accelerating the circular economy transition, this brief sets out a targeted approach to keeping materials in use. A focused mix of policies can promote design, business models, and incentives that favour reuse, repair and remanufacturing alongside regenerative practices such as cascading, composting and returning nutrients to soil.
the call for evidence focuses too much on measures to enhance collection and recycling and too little on prevention, repair and reuse;
tackling consumption rates and increasing reuse will also reduce the EU’s reliance on imports;
welcomes the move to develop EPR schemes but feels that the non-profit sector and other key stakeholders involved in the design and implementation process should be involved as well as producers;
more effective circularity metrics and targets are needed, including separate targets for consumption reduction, repair, reuse and preparation for reuse;
dedicated and sufficient financial mechanisms and funding streams are needed to ensure the viability of prevention, repair and reuse initiatives across the EU.
Plastic pollution continues to pose a major challenge for communities across Europe, and the question of who should finance the management of litter has become increasingly important. This first ACR+ policy paper on litter evaluates the progress made by Member States in establishing and rolling out the EPR systems required by Article 8 of the Single Use Plastics Directive (SUPD).
It finds that few Member States have started implementing these systems. It is easier to establish systems for packaging-related SUPD products (because of the EPR systems already in place) than for new products such as balloons and wet wipes.
However, the most challenging part of the implementation is the calculation of littering costs. Public authorities pay the bulk of this, but more transparency is needed.
