Waste prevention should always be our priority. However, even in the transition to a circular economy, residual streams from production and consumption processes will remain. It is important to ensure appropriate waste management and prevent landfilling or incineration of valuable resources. Our goal is to ensure that reliable, harmonised standards promote preparation for reuse and material-efficient recycling. This way we can turn waste into a resource and close the loop in a sustainable way by, for example, using organic waste as fertiliser, treating sustainably electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and batteries, and recovering critical raw materials. Better product design is also essential to limit the amount of waste, especially hazardous waste, and facilitate material recycling.
12 environmental NGOs and representatives of waste treatment operators call for setting new European legal requirements to improve e-waste treatment, collection, logistics and preparation for reuse inspired from the existing European CENELEC standards.
CEWASTE, a project funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme is developing a voluntary certification scheme for waste treatment. ECOS is a member of the CEWASTE project.
We welcome the EU’s intention to make sustainable products and circular business models the norm as part of the upcoming Sustainable Products Initiative. To ensure this new legislation achieves its goals, we have sent detailed recommendations to the European Commission highlighting the need for removing unnecessary, inefficient, toxic, wasteful and polluting products from the EU market complemented with (and not driven by) better consumer information.
The Fertilisers Products Regulation (FRP) was a step forward and the present amendments help to improve its applicability. However, the enormous disparities between the different industries involved – from multinational mineral fertiliser producers to localised composting sites – mean that the search for a level playing-field through harmonised criteria results in a regulation much more favourable to the bigger players. It is difficult to avoid composts and digestates being penalised through a multitude of testing obligations that weigh heavily on the production costs of small installations.
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