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Waste and circular economy actions contribute to reducing the need for new primary materials and the associated greenhouse gas emissions linked to the extraction and processing of resources. Including circular economy and waste activities in the reporting on climate change mitigation policies and measures can help provide a fuller account of a country’s mitigation efforts. This approach can further reveal policy opportunities to unlock additional emission reductions and help countries reach their net-zero targets.
Europe aims to become a circular economy. To encourage this, the EU has set targets for the 27 Member States (EU-27) to increase recycling and reduce landfilling. Specifically, by 2025, 55% of municipal waste and 65% of packaging waste must be prepared for re-use or recycled. This briefing assesses Member States’ prospects of meeting these targets and its findings constitute the basis of the European Commission’s 2023 early warning report.
The EU has set ambitious targets to improve municipal waste management. EU Member States need effective strategies and policy instruments to achieve these targets. This briefing provides an overview of some of the main instruments used across the EU and the performance of Member States so far.
This report proposes a new set of indicators dedicated to monitoring long-term trends in waste prevention. They focus on the drivers of waste generation, waste prevention policies enablers, and resulting outcomes in reduced waste and emissions.
Textiles are on average the fourth-highest source of pressure on the environment and climate change from a European consumption perspective, as shown in previous EEA briefings . Europe faces major challenges managing used textiles, including textiles waste. As reuse and recycling capacities in Europe are limited, a large share of used textiles collected in the EU is traded and exported to Africa and Asia, and their fate is highly uncertain. The common public perception of used clothing donations as generous gifts to people in need does not fully match reality.
Sewage treatment is an essential service that can deliver clean water, nutrients and organic fertiliser. It can and should contribute to delivering the broad goals of the Green Deal, with a key role in supporting the ambition to achieve zero pollution.
Municipal waste, if not managed properly, is a source of pollution. However, it also contains valuable materials that can be recycled. As in the EU, in the Western Balkan countries municipal waste has been the target of waste policies for several years, mainly aimed at improving waste management. This briefing reviews current waste issues across the region, key initiatives being implemented, and remaining obstacles to preventing municipal waste generation and to its appropriate management.
Municipal waste accounts for 27 % of the total waste generated in the EU (excluding mineral waste). Due to its complex composition and ubiquity, it can have significant negative impacts on human health and on the environment if not managed properly. The 2020 EU Circular Economy Action Plan has established an objective of halving the quantity of municipal waste that is not recycled or prepared for reuse by 2030. At the same time, all EU member states will have to recycle or prepare for reuse at least 60% of generated municipal waste by 2030. This briefing explores how these two targets are linked and how more ambitious waste prevention actions will be key for achieving them simultaneously.
Resource nexus assessments analyse the direct and indirect interconnections between different natural resources, their management, use and governance, as well as the synergies and trade-offs that can be generated through policy interventions. By building on the insights provided by a growing body of knowledge and selected case studies, this briefing reflects on the role of the resource nexus in supporting policy coherence and integration in the context of the European Green Deal.
From the perspective of European consumption, textiles have on average the fourth highest negative life cycle impact on the environment and climate change, after food, housing and mobility. A shift to a circular textile production and consumption system with longer use, and more reuse and recycling could reduce those impacts along with reductions in overall consumption. One important measure is circular design of textiles to improve product durability, repairability and recyclability and to ensure the uptake of secondary raw materials in new products.
Waste prevention is the best waste management policy option, according to the waste hierarchy, the EU's main rule for the environmental ranking of waste management policies. Its main objective is to reduce waste generation, the environmental impacts of waste management and the hazardousness of the waste generated. It is mainly expressed as the aspiration to break the link between waste generation and economic growth (decoupling). To support this objective, the EU and all is Member States have put in place legislation that promotes activities in products' life cycles aimed at reducing the amount of waste generated. At the national level, these policies are described in national or regional waste prevention programmes, which have been in place in most of the countries examined since at least 2013.
This report aims to give a European overview of the main drivers and pressures that are at the core of key water management challenges and which put European water bodies most at risk of not achieving key environmental objectives. Identifying the pressures from and drivers of key water management challenges at the European level can help in prioritising the main issues that should be tackled with measures.
The extraction and processing of raw materials are associated with potentially significant environmental impacts, including contributing to approximately half of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. In the EU, non-energy, non-agricultural raw materials, although a small subset of all raw materials and natural resources, account for 18 % of GHG emissions associated with EU consumption. In the context of the EU's commitment to reducing its share of global GHG emissions, as well as the European Green Deal's aspiration to achieve a climate-neutral continent by 2050, mitigating climate impacts from raw material production has a central role to play in the EU's climate agenda.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the complex and interrelated challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and rising inequality will not be solved without a fundamental transformation of our societies. Far-reaching changes are needed to our technologies and infrastructures, cultures and lifestyles, as well as adaptations to the corresponding governance and institutional frameworks. Around the world, these important system innovations are converging in cities.
Monitoring and reporting results for Horizon 2020 regional initiative
This report summarises how over 40 years of European environmental policy and management have significantly improved bathing water quality across Europe.
Digitalisation is transforming the 21st century, affecting every area of daily life, including the environmental technology sector. Digital technologies will deliver more effective waste management regimes. They will allow Europe’s economy to recover more of the valuable materials present in waste streams, reducing the amounts of raw materials mined or imported and avoiding the associated environmental and climate impacts.
Plastic-based — or ‘synthetic’— textiles are woven into our daily lives in Europe. They are in the clothes we wear, the towels we use and the bed sheets we sleep in. They are in the carpets, curtains and cushions we decorate our homes and offices with. And they are in safety belts, and car tyres, workwear and sportswear. Synthetic textile fibres are produced from fossil fuel resources, such as oil and natural gas. Their production, consumption and related waste handling generate greenhouse gas emissions, use non-renewable resources and can release microplastics. This briefing provides an overview of the synthetic textile economy in Europe, analyses environmental and climate impacts, and highlights the potential for developing a circular economy value chain.
The circular economy has become a priority policy topic in Europe (EC, 2015, 2020) and is a key objective of the European Green Deal. There is increasing interest in the potential for altering traditional business models to enable materials and products to be reused and remain in the economy for as long as possible — as opposed to being used once and then discarded. This briefing presents an analytical framework, identifying actions that can be taken to implement circular business models effectively.
Plastics play an essential role in modern society, but also lead to significant impacts on the environment and climate. Reducing such impacts while retaining the usefulness of plastics requires a shift towards a more circular and sustainable plastics system. This report tells the story of plastics, and their effect on the environment and climate, and looks at their place in a European circular economy.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/waste/publications/publications_topic or scan the QR code.
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