Tyres are complex products essential to the mobility of millions of Europeans. Likewise, tyre recycling is essential to the sustainability of the entire tyre value chain, be it in terms of resource efficiency or climate neutrality. Yet, despite a landmark landfill ban in 2006, much needs to be done to improve the circularity of tyres. To give an order of magnitude, today, for one tyre that is recycled, one tyre gets incinerated for energy recovery, and the worse in terms of end-markets opportunities is yet to come.
The EuRIC conference on tyre recycling takes place in Brussels on 18 April 2023.
The catalogue, entitled "20 years of ecodesign - Made in Euskadi" and available in both physical and digital formats, is the first in Europe to compile a broad list of product categories from ten industrial sectors, namely the chemical industry, the metal sector, furniture, automotive, food, production and consumption, machinery, transport, electric-electronic, and the construction materials sector. Individual data sheets containing the main characteristics and aspects of each circular product are provided.
The publication illustrates how lifecycle analysis methodologies have been applied to substantially improve the environmental impact of these products and to serve as an example for the European industrial sector.
Even though only 24 % of the new circular solutions developed or demonstrated in the projects are already operational or available on the market, the results of all the projects completed as of this date and validated by the companies have been included.
The DRIVE 0 webinar "Let’s talk circular architecture" will take place on 28 March 2023 from 10:00 to 12:00 CEST. This is the first webinar of the DRIVE 0 series "Circular Talks". The session hosted by BUILD UP will be organised in cooperation with the Architects' Council of Europe.
On 28 March 2023, the European Commission will hold a webinar for the buildings sector on "Learn how certification schemes are aligning with Level(s), the EU framework for sustainable buildings."
This special webinar seeks to highlight how building certification schemes across Europe are integrating the Level(s) framework of indicators and objectives into their requirements.
The REEPRODUCE project will break new ground by establishing a sustainable and complete European industrial-scale value chain for recycling the rare earth elements in permanent magnets. REEPRODUCE will capitalise on the knowledge generated by previous R&D projects (REE4EU) and tackle all the remaining technical challenges along the value chain. This innovative technique will produce new permanent magnets using environmentally-friendly technologies at a competitive cost and using end-of-life products as a resource.
The European Commission is organising a short online information session to explain the objectives of the recently published open public consultation on new product priorities under Ecodesign for Sustainable Products. The session will also set out the type of feedback sought and briefly present the preliminary analysis – on which the consultation is based – that was carried out by the Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
The online information session will take place on Friday 10 March from 11:00 to 12:30 CET.
Smart Circular Economy is an international IEEE workshop focusing on the role of ICT as an enabler for Circular Economy. It brings together scientists, researchers, as well as relevant stakeholders from the industry and local communities to share and exchange their experiences, discuss challenges, and report state-of-the-art and in-progress research lying in the intersection of ICT and Circular Economy.
The University of Cambridge (UK) is running a sector-wide workshop on "Speeding up the Transition to Closed Loop Synthetic Fibre Recycling by 2030". It will help industry experts and policy makers co-create strategic policy solutions on how to speed up the transition away from the use of virgin and non-closed loop sources of synthetics towards a full closed loop textile recycling system across the European Union.
The workshop will be held online from 11:00 to 15:00 (London time) on Tuesday 28 February 2023.
Secondary raw material (SRM) markets are crucial for a circular economy. This is because SRMs enable recyclables to re-enter the production value chain, which reduces dependency on primary resources as a result.
This role is acknowledged in the EU circular economy action plan of 2020. However, if policy is to help establish or further develop such markets, we need to better understand the currently-fragmented SRM markets in the EU.
