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.
On July 14, the EU Commission presented its plans to expand EU-wide emissions trading. However, CO2 emissions from waste incineration plants are not to be subject to a price. With more than 95 million tons of CO2 equivalents annually, waste incinerators in the EU are driving climate change. Six organisations sent a letter to the environment ministers of all EU member states urging them to advocate for the application of the polluter-pays principle and the extension of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) to municipal waste incineration at the upcoming EU Council of Ministers meeting on 6 October.
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