Recycling Albania was set up in 2022, based on the zero waste hierarchy. It aims to transform Albania’s waste sector into a model for sustainable resource management and lead the way in circular economy solutions in the Western Balkans.
It's setting up a Circular Economy Park, with a Multifunctional Education Centre, Recycling Yard and Second-Hand Store. The environmental, economic and social dimensions of the circular economy are covered!
This year, the European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production will focus on Multi-stakeholder cooperation on sustainability: Role of business, academia, public sector and civil society in Sustainable Consumption and Production.
SUM 2025 aims to promote more continuous interaction and collaboration across fields, encouraging sustained, multidisciplinary dialogue and strategic partnerships.
Italy's National Strategy for Circular Economy identifies the administrative and fiscal tools designed to strengthen the secondary raw materials market in terms of availability, performance and costs; contribute to the achievement of climate neutrality objectives; and implement a roadmap of actions and measurable targets up to 2035. It sets out the legislative framework governing the objectives and the ways and means of achieving them.
Macro-objectives include: enhance competitiveness of secondary raw materials; consolidate EPR schemes; develop fiscal reforms promoting the circular economy; improve traceability of waste streams; mandatory minimum environmental criteria for GPP; focus on strategic industrial supply chains; support industrial symbiosis; and foster circular skills.
The HOOP project has provided Project Development Assistance to eight lighthouse cities and regions, supporting them with the development of large-scale urban circular bioeconomy initiatives focusing on making bio-based products from urban biowaste and wastewater. The partners have developed a suite of open-source tools to help cities and regions launch urban circular bioeconomy projects.
ADVANCE Circular is an Erasmus+ project, focusing on linking the tourism industry with VET (Vocational Education and Training) to embrace circularity. The brochure describes the project which aims to assess the readiness of the tourism sector and VET institutions for adopting circular principles in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.
"Are we ready for circularity?" is part of the second stage (Mapping the Scene & Creating Bridges). It finds that despite progress in raising awareness of circularity, significant efforts are needed to overcome financial, educational and regulatory barriers. Strengthening strategic partnerships, increasing funding support and enhancing training opportunities will be vital to advance circularity readiness in the tourism and VET sectors in these countries.
Up2Circ is an international project funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme. The overall aim is to help European SMEs go circular.
The project assists SMEs: there are awareness-raising and training modules and information on how to apply for EU funding. The platform has prepared a catalogue of its success stories.
The platform is also building a network of stakeholders: people with access to many SMEs, expertise in a given sector and/or the circular economy, advanced technologies or social innovation. These people will have access to Up2Circ's tools for helping SMEs.
The website also has information on circular events. The project organisers have experience with assisting SMEs; with this project they are focusing on the circular dimension.
PRIMUS was a research project funded under the Horizon Europe programme, which ran from 2022 to 2025. It researched new polymer recycling technologies, with a view to producing new recycled materials that meet the requirements for manufacturing high value products.
It produced a webinar series on Boosting Plastic Recycling and a number of training courses.
The REFLOW project sought to understand and transform urban material flows, and to co-create and test regenerative solutions at business, governance and individual levels to create a resilient circular economy. Projects were carried out in six pilot cities, covering areas such as textiles and energy from waste.
RREUSE, Europe’s largest network of social enterprises active in reuse, repair and recycling, is organising a conference to mark the end of the DigiSocCirc project, which aims to support, optimise and accelerate the role played by social circular enterprises in the digital era.
During the conference, the DigiSocCirc consortium will share the project’s key findings and facilitate panel discussions with representatives from social enterprises, businesses and policymakers.
