In a final vote, the European Parliament has just adopted a new law updating the rules on the collection, treatment and discharge of urban wastewater. Europe's local authorities fear an explosion for the costs of its implementation.
The EU has a goal to increase packaging waste recycling, but reaching it will depend on whether local authorities increase and improve collection.
Glass is a success story for Europeans and for European recycling rates. Almost 8 out of 10 glass bottles put on the European market are already collected for recycling around Europe – a figure that should reach 90% by the end of the decade.
Deposit return and extended producer responsibility schemes are everywhere in the EU but have very different rules. Does this present a barrier to meeting the EU’s recycling objectives?
The Circular Economy Package and Plastics Strategy have set a high-level framework to improve the resource efficiency of the European economy. But to be effective, this framework must remain a policy priority for the next European Commission and Parliament, writes Nick Molho.
Two of recycling’s main tools are used to varying degrees across Europe and now the industry and member states are considering how best to leverage them and help create what has been touted as the "internal market for recycling".
Collecting and recycling waste is more important than ever, since EU targets ask more and more from member states. But national capitals face a dilemma about how best to recycle more, as two distinct schemes offer two very different solutions.
After almost 18 hours of negotiations, the European Council and Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a proposed package of waste legislation in the early hours of Monday (18 December).
According to the EU Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe, each year in the EU we throw away 2.7 billion tonnes of waste. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) was introduced in the 2008 Waste Review as a means to support the design and production of goods, efficiently using resources during their entire life-cycle. However, EPR is not consistently applied throughout Member States.
