Bridging EU bio-waste legislation and practical solutions for healthier soils

Final reflections from the LIFE BIOBEST project—2.5 years of practical solutions to close the bio-waste management gap

Across Europe, the soil beneath our feet is in silent crisis. Today, 60–70% of European soils are classified as unhealthy, and nearly half suffer from dangerously low levels of organic matter. When soils are degraded, they lose their ability to hold nutrients and water, undermining crop yields and food quality. At the same time, their capacity to store carbon collapses. This is not just an environmental red flag; it’s a threat to the very foundation of life, from food production to climate resilience. 

In response, the European Commission has recently introduced the Soil Monitoring Law—now awaiting formal endorsement by the Council and Parliament before its final adoption—which aims to ensure that all soils in Europe are in a healthy condition by 2050. Reaching that goal, however, requires cross-sectoral effort. Among the most promising—yet remarkably straightforward—solutions is the production of high-quality compost and digestate from separately collected bio-waste. 

This is where the EU-funded LIFE BIOBEST project comes in. Launched 2.5 years ago, this LIFE preparatory project set out to prove a clear premise: that closing the bio-waste cycle through better separate collection, treatment, and use of organic outputs will not only help us achieve EU recycling and landfilling targets, but also play a key role in restoring soil structure and fertility, all while reducing reliance on—often imported—synthetic fertilisers. 

However, the gap between potential and current practice remains wide. Today, only 26% of all kitchen waste generated in the EU is successfully separately collected, meaning that 74% is still landfilled or incinerated. This not only squanders valuable nutrients that could be returned to the soil but also fuels the climate crisis. In the EU, the waste sector is the second-largest source of methane emissions, with approximately 97 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emitted in 2022, according to the European Environment Agency. Solid waste disposal, primarily organic waste in landfills, accounts for about 80% of these emissions.

Improving bio-waste management is, therefore, not just a waste issue; it’s climate policy and soil restoration in action. According to the ECN Data Report (2022), meeting the EU’s 65% recycling target could double the agricultural area benefiting from compost.

But getting there requires more than good intentions. It demands a well-coordinated chain of actions and policies, from the kitchen bin to the soil:

• It all begins with the effective separate collection of bio-waste. For compost and digestate to serve as truly effective soil improvers and fertilisers, they must be made from high-quality input. This means not only boosting capture rates but also drastically reducing contamination and physical impurities.  To achieve this, the LIFE BIOBEST project calls for bio-waste-related legally binding targets:
  • A limit on the amount of bio-waste in residual waste, such as no more than 25 kg per capita/year by 2030.
    
  • A control value on accepted physical impurities (ideally below 5%) in bio-waste destined for composting or anaerobic digestion.
    
  • Furthermore, it should introduce legally binding targets for residual waste generation that drives quicker progress on bio-waste prevention, collection and treatment.
• However, the current EU bio-waste management landscape lacks a level playing field. It is often more economically advantageous to send bio-waste to landfill or incineration rather than invest in separate collection and treatment, because the environmental costs and negative externalities are not fully integrated into the pricing. This economic imbalance hampers the circular economy transition by making lower-tier disposal options cheaper and more prevalent. To address this, stronger economic instruments aligned with the “polluter pays” and “Do No Significant Harm” principles are essential, such as strategic and increased landfill and incineration taxes, together with tax refund schemes.
• But collection alone isn’t enough. That material must be treated efficiently to produce compost and digestate that meet the highest agronomic and environmental standards is the next key step. Indeed, quality input equals quality output, and only high-quality products can gain the trust of farmers, landscapers, and the growing media industry. Implementing a Quality Assurance Scheme based on existing approved standards, such as the one developed by ECN, for compost and digestate, can, for example, ensure the highest product quality and competitiveness, while enhancing consumer confidence.
• Even then, the journey isn’t complete. Compost and digestate need markets—robust, well-functioning ones that support their use at scale. Today, these markets remain underdeveloped, held back by fragmented policies, a lack of incentives, and regulatory uncertainty. That’s why the EU must recognise the cross-cutting value of bio-waste-derived soil improvers and align relevant legislation, from the Soil Monitoring Law to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
• Finally, to scale these solutions across Europe, we need robust monitoring frameworks in use and that knowledge is effectively shared across the continent. Transparent, harmonised data used by local authorities is key to not only tracking progress but also identifying best practices for others to replicate. Key indicators to be monitoring include, but not limited to:
  • Quantity of bio-waste found in residual waste
    
  • % of the population connected to a bio-waste separate collection scheme
    
  • Contaminants in bio-waste collected
    
  • Ratio between total rejects and physical contaminants in input biowaste (% of contaminants in input bio-waste)
    
  • Ratio between rejects/total inputs (% of total input)
    
  • Quality of the end-product (e.g compost or digestate), which relies on the input material quality and pre-treatment technology

To support this transformation from policy to practice, LIFE BIOBEST has developed a practical toolbox of proven solutions, instruments and guidance, designed to empower key stakeholders to deliver high-quality bio-waste management and soil health improvement. The project’s key deliverables include, among others, the following publications:

• A Comprehensive Guidance for the EU (summarised in 11 languages) with EU policy recommendations to drive and accelerate progress by supporting Member States in implementing high-performing bio-waste collection and recycling.
• A Policy brief which identifies the gaps in the regulatory framework and systemic barriers obstructing efficient bio-waste management with high capture rates of high-quality material.
• A Proposal of quality standards which aims to establish harmonised quality standards for bio-waste entering recycling processes across EU Member States, including recommendations for a standardised methodology for quality assessment via waste compositional analysis and/or visual inspection, as well as a control value for impurities in bio-waste.
• Four sets of validated best practice guidelines covering:
  • Separate collection
  • Governance and economic instruments
  • Production of quality compost and digestate
  • Communication and engagement practices
    
• Two Decision Support Trees for local/regional authorities to assess core actions and barriers, tailoring bio-waste management strategies to their specific contexts and difficulties and navigate LIFE BIOBEST outputs and recommendations.
• A Decision support Web Tool designed to help authorities, waste operators, and consultants simulate and evaluate and improve their bio-waste management systems.
• A  set of suggested Key Performance Indicators that facilitate the assessment of the bio-waste management situation of a territory and the design of future strategies. 

You can explore all LIFE BIOBEST publications in our dedicated library

While the LIFE BIOBEST project has delivered essential tools, evidence-based guidance, and practical solutions for effective bio-waste management, translating these into widespread impact will require urgent political commitment and policy alignment across the EU. And the urgency for this is clear. In the last Early Warning Reports for Member States on achieving the 2025 recycling targets, 20 out of 27 Member States were given bio-waste improvement as a key policy recommendation.

The forthcoming EU Bioeconomy Strategy—which aims to enhance competitiveness by increasing the sustainable use of biomass in quality products—represents a pivotal legislative opportunity to champion high-quality compost and digestate. In parallel, the upcoming proposed Circular Economy Act must explicitly recognise the vital role of bio-waste-derived fertilisers in replacing imported mineral fertilisers and fostering the transition towards sustainable, circular agricultural systems. 

Only through coordinated, ambitious and coherent policy frameworks can Europe unlock the full potential that bio-waste can have in restoring the health of Europe’s soil. If policymakers implemented the recommendations produced during the LIFE BIOBEST project and followed the best practices highlighted throughout, Member States can accelerate the fulfilment of the EU’s climate neutrality target and biodiversity commitments, whilst simultaneously progressing towards the achievement of food waste prevention and broader recycling targets.