EU leads in recycling but true circular economy remains a way off

Every year, more than 2 billion tons of waste are produced in the European Union - equivalent to 4.8 tons per person.

In 2021, most of that waste went to landfill and incineration, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA).

The EU wants to double the proportion of materials used in the economy that come from recycling by 2030, relative to the 2020 rate. This proportion is known as the circular material use rate (CMUR).

“We are still far from the ambition to double the [European] Union’s circularity rate by 2030,” the EEA said, adding that there was a “low or moderate likelihood” that the EU’s ambitions would be “achieved in the coming years."

The EEA says too many products have a very short lifespan, if they are even used at all.

Nevertheless, Europe still uses more recycled materials than any other region of the world.

Much of that is thanks to legislation. EU legislation on waste includes more than 30 binding targets for 2015-2030. In March, the EU revised its Waste Shipment Regulation, which requires member states to reduce waste exports and do more of their own recycling.

Under the new rules, waste may only be exported to countries outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development if the destination country explicitly agrees and can prove that the waste is processed sustainably.

According to figures from the statistics office Eurostat, the EU exported over 32 million tons of waste to non-EU countries in 2022. Of this, over a third - 12.4 million tons - went to Turkey. 3.5 million tons went to India, 2 million to the United Kingdom and 1.6 million each to Switzerland and Norway.

On March 13, the European Parliament approved a proposal to curb food and textile waste. EU lawmakers voted to cut 40% of the food waste generated by households, retailers and restaurants by 2030.

Brussels estimates that the EU generates 60 million tons of food waste a year, or 131 kilograms per person.

On March 4, EU negotiators agreed the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, to cut back on packaging waste by 5% by 2030, compared to 2018 levels. The aim is to reduce this further by 10% in 2035 and 15% by 2040. Single-use plastics in cafés and restaurants will be banned from 2030.

A new OECD report predicts the amount of plastic packaging will triple by 2060. Some environmentalists argue that increased recycling does not address the problem.

RECYCLING PLASTIC FOR TEXTILES NOT CIRCULAR

For example, fashion brands often use recycled plastic from PET bottles - much to the chagrin of the food industry, which pays for the collection of the used bottles.

But the beverage industry also argues that while the plastic from PET bottles can be recycled to make new bottles multiple times, it cannot be used in this way if it's turned into textiles.

“Let’s be clear: this is not circularity,” a coalition of beverage industry associations wrote in an open letter to the European Parliament last year.

"In the EU today, an estimated 32% of PET drinks bottles collected for recycling remain in a closed loop – that is, recirculated into new bottles," the letter said.

"The remaining 68% is cascaded (downcycled) into other PET product applications where it cannot be recovered and recycled back into new bottles due to the change in its material properties."

Less than 1% of textiles worldwide are recycled at present, the EU says, with 12.6 million tons of textile waste generated in the bloc each year.

A recent EEA study showed that between 4% and 9% of textiles introduced to the European market ended up being destroyed without ever having been used, while creating 5.6 million tons of CO2 emissions.

Nearly half of all textile waste collected in Europe ends up in Africa; either on second-hand markets or, more often, in “open landfills,” according to EEA figures from 2019. Another 41% of the bloc’s textile waste goes to Asia, mostly “to dedicated economic zones where they are sorted and processed.”

NGOs say that much of Europe’s waste clothes sent to Asia go to “Export Processing Zones.” Paul Roeland of the Clean Clothes Campaign said these are “notorious for providing ‘lawless’ exclaves, where even the low labour standards of Pakistan and India are not observed.”

E-WASTE EFFORTS LACK ENERGY

Around 62 million tons of electronics were thrown out in 2022.

The volume of so-called e-waste, which includes mobile phones, TVs and vapes, is “rising five times faster than documented recycling,” according to the International Telecommunications Union and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, which define e-waste as any discarded product with a plug or battery.

The amount recorded in 2022 was over 80% higher than in 2010. “Billions of dollars worth of strategically valuable resources squandered, dumped. Just 1% of rare earth element demand is met by e-waste recycling,” they warned.

FOOD WASTE - A 'GLOBAL TRAGEDY'

Households around the world threw away 1 billion meals every single day in 2022 in what the United Nations’ latest Food Waste Index Report on March 27 called a “global tragedy.”

More than 1 trillion dollars' worth of food was thrown away by households and businesses at a time when nearly 800 million people are going hungry.

The report said that more than 1 billion tons of food – almost one fifth of all the produce available on the market – was wasted in 2022, most of it by households.

“If food waste was a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet behind the US and China,” said Richard Swannell from non-profit organization WRAP, who co-authored the report with the UN Environment Programme.

The report is just the second on global food waste compiled by the UN and provides the most complete picture to date.

The content of this article is based on reporting by AFP, AGERPRES, BTA, dpa, EFE, LUSA, STA, as part of the European Newsroom (enr) project.