This report connects the potential for resource efficiency, via circular economy and the value-retention processes (VRPs), with a policy-relevant lens. It is one of the first to quantify the current-state and potential impacts associated with the inclusion of VRPs within industrial economic systems.

In order to do that the assessment applies the different VRPs to a series of products within three industrial sectors and quantifies benefits in relation to the original manufactured product, such as the material requirement, the energy used, the waste as well as the costs and the generation of jobs.

The report also highlights the systemic barriers that may inhibit progressive scale-up including regulatory, market, technology and infrastructure barriers, and how they could be overcome.

The International Resource Panel think piece provides policy options to reduce marine plastic litter and achieve the Osaka Blue Ocean Vision, which voluntarily commits G20 countries to “reduce additional pollution by marine plastic litter to zero by 2050 through a comprehensive life-cycle approach”.

The report shows the marine plastic litter trends relevant to 2050, summarizes the current plastic policy landscape and explores policy upstream and downstream interventions to reduce marine plastic litter and to transition to a circular plastic economy. They include, among others, actions to design out waste, incentivise reuse, and exploit market-based instruments.

4 Horizon 2020 projects working on biowaste valorisation have teamed up to promote innovative solutions for the circular bioeconomy. This joint initiative is named ROOTS-circulaR pOlicies for changing the biOwasTe System. The projects - HOOP, ValueWaste, Scalibur and WaysTUP - are piloting new solutions to transform urban biowaste and wastewater into valuable products like Feed, Fertilisers, Bioplastics, Biopesticides, Proteins and Bioethanol.

The promoters have discussed their views and shared their concerns on policy barriers hindering innovations that lead to the Circular Economy for urban biowaste. As a result of the discussion, 4 focus topics have been singled out, accompanied by proposed solutions, that will constitute the key messages and be addressed in future initiatives.

An increasing number of countries consider implementing a deposit return system for single-use beverage containers to address today’s challenges, i.e.:

1. meeting new waste recovery targets,
2. ending littering and
3. moving towards a circular economy.

TOMRA shares lessons learnt from its 45+ years’ experience of innovating and managing deposit return systems globally in a new white paper including:

• outcomes of effective deposit return systems
• 4 key principles and 12 elements of high-performing deposit return systems
• dozens of case studies on real-world implementation of deposit return policy.

The white paper seeks to contribute to an educated discussion on recycling best practice – including what can be learnt from the past and what the future may look like.