The European Green Deal sets out ambitious goals for plastic packaging products in the EU, which include ensuring that all products on the market are reusable or recyclable by 2030. The European project CIRC-PACK shared key lessons at its final online event in March.
Today, only 8.6% of the resources and materials in the global economy are reused or recycled.
A crucial transition to a circular economy is required to reach the environmental goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to achieve countries’ climate targets as set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
In this context, it is essential to ensure that the transition to a resource-efficient and circular economic model also delivers on social objectives.
This paper introduces the relevance of the circular economy in the international development SDG context. It also explores how a just transition approach can be successfully applied in the circular economy context.
Excess Materials Exchange (EME) is a young and innovative technology company whose digital matching platform aims to find new high-value reuse options for materials or (waste) products for companies.
Despite continuous advances in municipal waste management, there are still several waste streams that offer limited opportunities for material recovery and thus end up in landfills and incineration plants.
One challenging stream is the “bulky waste”, defined by the URBANREC project as “(mixed) waste from households and similar waste from companies that does not fit (because of its size, shape or weight) in the regular receptacles used for household waste collection".
In this context, the URBANREC project aims to develop and implement a comprehensive eco-innovative bulky waste management system (to enhance prevention and reuse, improve logistics and develop new waste treatment methods to obtain high added-value recycled products) and show its effectiveness in different regions.
Following the publication of the new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) by the European Commission in early March, the members of the Coordination Group of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform have issued a joint statement on the CEAP, while also reflecting on the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the world.
Research on Remelting and Purification of Si-kerf for PV wafers is part of CABRISS, a European collaboration aimed to develop a circular economy mainly for the photovoltaic but also other industries such as electronics or metallurgy.
During production of silicon wafers out of silicon (Si) ingots and wafers, about 40–50% of the material is lost due to the cutting technique. The research had kerf from slurry based wafer cuttings undergoing several refining steps and being remelted into ingots for PV-application.
Conclusion: With 10 % refined material, ingots were still directionally solidified, whereas with 100 % refined material, they were not. The presented refining method does not allow for ingots with 100 % refined material to be used as PV-material.
The project Recycling of broken Si based structures and solar cells is part of CABRISS, a European collaboration aimed to develop a circular economy mainly for the photovoltaic (PV), but also for other industries such as electronics or metallurgy.
The paper presents some tests in which broken solar cell structures coming from an early stage in the PV production process chain as well as broken finished solar cells have been recycled into new silicon (Si) feedstock through demetallisation, purification and directional solidification.
The paper explores two different routes to remove diffusion layers and anti-reflection coating (ARC) on broken cells. It also presents the characteristics of ingots produced with the Si-feedstock from the two routes by directional solidification.
In a resource-constrained world the future economy will need to be circular.
From a policy perspective, the question is whether averting catastrophic environmental impacts through an accelerated transition to a global circular economy can also deliver sustained growth and jobs.
Multiregional input−output (MRIO) analysis models the interdependencies between industries and within/between countries as well as between intermediate and final goods producers and consumers, thus providing a useful toolbox for assessing social, environmental, and economy-wide impacts of the adoption of the circular economy.
This research paper resorts to this toolbox to compare the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario to an alternative circular economy scenario.
At times of Covid-19 quarantine, Belgian startup ASmartWorld who reconditions second-hand smartphones, took the initiative to distribute them free of charge in old people's homes to help guests reconnect with their families.
Packaging plastics can offer an almost infinite range of options for manufacturers, both in terms of function and design. Their durability and resistance to degradation means that if they ‘leak’ into the environment, they stay there. Leakage has been increasing rapidly and its detrimental impact, especially on the marine environment, has attracted wide public and political concern.
EASAC established in 2018 an Expert Group to look at scientific aspects of plastics packaging and the circular economy. This report is the result of an 18-month investigation and reviews the negative consequences of the current linear economy for plastic packaging, the scope for improvement towards a more circular pattern and options for increasing recycling rates and reducing leakage into the environment.
LIFE REFOREST is a project funded by the LIFE Programme that aims to mitigate the soil loss associated with post-fire episodes in forest areas.
LIFE Green Sewer is a LIFE Program funded project that aims to implement a new secondary wastewater treatment of industrial water.
The 2020 Report on the Circular Economy in Italy, developed by CEN (Circular Economy Network) in collaboration with ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) and Fondazione Sviluppo Sostenibile, analyses the state of play of the circular economy in Italy with, this year, a particular focus on the bioeconomy.
The report was presented during the 2nd National Conference on the Circular Economy livestreamed on 19 Marchfrom Rome. It was introduced by Edo Ronchi, President of CEN, and Roberto Morabito, Director of the Department for Sustainability, ENEA, and President of the Italian Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ICESP).
For a slide presentation of the report, click on the speakers Ronchi and Morabito.
The PLATIRUS project seeks to address the European shortage of Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) by recovering PGMs from alternative secondary resources. It has the potential to offer a substitute for a large proportion of these critical raw materials which are becoming ever more scarce.
On 17 and 18 March 2020 the Circular Materials Conference invites you to reimagine materials with the help of emerging technologies and novel collaborations to create a circular future together.
ETV4INNOVATION is a two-and-a-half-year long European Commission funded vocational education and training Strategic Partnership project under Erasmus+ programme. It has been designed with the aim to support the development and the implementation of an innovative practice and a new training path in the field of Environmental Technology Verification (ETV).
This retrospective report is a review of the plans set out by Circular Flanders in the Kick-off Statement.
The most important finding? A good deal more was accomplished than initially anticipated. For example, the opportunity to launch three Open Calls, permitting the funding of over 130 innovative circular economy projects. The Green Deal on Circular Construction was also an unprecedented opportunity, as was the complementary reinforcement of the OVAM team of experts in ecodesign and area-specific operations, allowing the scope to expand.
This retrospective report is an interactive PDF. External links to downloads or online resources have been embedded on each project page for easy accessibility.
The national conference on the Circular Economy is scheduled for March 19 in Rome and will be livestreamed. Developed in collaboration with ENEA, it will show the 2020 Report on the circular economy in Italy with a focus on the regenerative bioeconomy.
The live streaming of the Conference is available here.
The overall objective of the project is the "smart" exploitation of Petroleum Refinery Sludges (PRS) produced by the Refinery of Motor Oil Hellas in Corinth (Greece).
Fifty million metric tonnes of e-waste is generated every year, equalling the weight of nearly 4,500 Eiffel towers. Much of it is incinerated or placed in landfill, causing pollution, human health hazards and the loss of valuable finite resources.
Listen to experts do a deep-dive into the problems associated with e-waste and discuss how they can be tackled.
Two of Ecopack's latest and more innovative projects are aimed at raising public awareness on the separate collection and recycling of packaging waste.
The EU-funded RE4 project has developed prefabricated energy-efficient building concepts containing up to 85 % of recycled materials and reused structures from construction and demolition waste (DMW).
Citeo est engagée pour un monde plus durable et oeuvre pour réduire l’impact environnemental des emballages ménagers et des papiers, en les transformant en nouvelles ressources.
Depuis 25 ans, les entreprises ont investi 10 milliards d’euros pour collecter, trier, recycler les emballages et les papiers. Cet engagement a permis de déployer la collecte sélective partout en France, de faire du tri le 1er geste citoyen des Français et de créer des filières de recyclage, en partenariat avec les collectivités locales, les filières matériaux et les opérateurs.
Citeo contribue à une mission d’intérêt général : ancrer la consommation durable, l’éco-conception et le recyclage dans les habitudes des entreprises et des citoyens de métropole et des Outre-mer.
restado is a platform that offers a circular economy approach to construction by promoting the reuse of reclaimed construction materials.
It provides support and knowledge on how to reclaim and reuse the materials, and offers a marketplace to trade them.
Sustainable construction guidelines for public authorities – A circular economy perspective aims to help public authorities navigate through the topic of sustainable construction, understand what it means and determine how to encourage it.
The guidelines are especially targeted at local and regional authorities, as they play a crucial role in the whole construction life cycle not only by stimulating innovation and cooperation between all actors but also because they work at a level close to citizens.
Unlike most of the literature on the topic, these guidelines focus on circularity and material resource efficiency, rather than covering only energy efficiency extensively. Moreover, the report goes beyond waste to integrate the whole value chain of the construction sector.
The report provides an overview of different organisations and an analysis of the local performances of 135 waste collection systems across Europe. It highlights the diversity of collection systems, with many different sorting systems and combination of collection modes (door-to-door, bring bank, combined, etc.).
This report is a publication of the ACR+ Waste Observatory whose objective is to allow consistent comparisons among local and regional authorities, in order to provide benchmarks on municipal waste management and identify effective waste strategies for quality recycling. The analysed data has been collected in the framework of the H2020 COLLECTORS project, aimed at identifying good practices to improve the quantity of sorted municipal waste leading to high quality recycling.
This webinar will outline a framework to classify indicators according to the measurement characteristics of the circular economy, but also provide an alternative pathway to monitor the circular economy.
RacionaLUSO offers a compact system that meets the recently-introduced Portuguese quality legislation for water reuse. With the availability of just 2m2, the system can treat 15m3 of water per day with a recovery efficiency of 80 % of water and 45.6 % of energy (thermal).
