Rethinking resources: the next frontier for a zero waste future
This article was originally published in Hungarian, in our member organisation Humusz’s 30th anniversary magazine. Click here to read the original post.
In recent years, we have faced multiple crises taking place amid challenging global circumstances. Climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss continue to intensify as we edge closer to irreversible disruption on several planetary boundaries, while existing inequalities continue to rise. These environmental challenges are unfolding in new times of political unpredictability, rising protectionism, and retrenchment.
Our work with waste and resource-use highlights how current policies and measures remain both insufficient, and inadequately resourced for the transition needed. We continue to observe the failure of “sustainability-as-usual” approaches – i.e. marginal improvement in objectives and means. Despite years of circular economy policies and practices, we continue to struggle to decrease waste generation, emissions and other indicators.
When hope and ambition come from the ground
Amid these challenges, a powerful shift is emerging across Europe. Grassroots movements, alongside pioneer cities and businesses, are implementing innovative zero waste strategies that demonstrate that a different pathway is possible and effective – once the necessary effort is put in place. At Zero Waste Europe (ZWE), we now work with 86 municipalities across 18 countries, reaching 18 million Europeans. Each of these success stories proves that environmental action can strengthen local economies, and communities’ wellbeing.
As a network, we have spent the last few years building the ecosystem needed to turn our vision into reality, and raising the bar of what can be done on the ground. On packaging reuse and prevention systems, we support 36 European cities – including five capital cities (Berlin, Paris, Nicosia, Zagreb, Brussels) to implement plastic prevention and reuse strategies. Some of these cities have even achieved results that now serve as European best practices. For years, we were told municipalities had limited options to prevent waste, but our successes have proved the naysayers wrong. For example, Komunala Škofja Loka in Slovenia prevented 23,000 single-use cups from being used in 2024, all thanks to their simple rental service. Similarly, Tallinn achieved a 92% return rate for reusable tableware at city events, and established over 10 municipal reuse and repair hubs.
We also engage cities on their bio-waste management practices as a means of methane mitigation. In 2024, this led to 300 tonnes of bio-waste being diverted from landfills to compost across the municipalities.
Thanks to combined efforts, Zagreb has decreased landfill waste by 20% and increased separate waste collection by 50%. This is partly due to measures like banning single-use plastics in public buildings, and increased door-to-door collection of materials.
We keep moving closer to our zero waste vision, one waste stream at the time, and recently kickstarted a new project on textile waste: “Strengthening the Implementation of Circular Textiles Strategies in the EU” (STICT).
In an era of political polarisation, when environmental policies are increasingly portrayed as economic burdens, we are proud to counter with evidence that demonstrates how zero waste approaches create jobs, save money, and build healthier communities. (See our State of Zero Waste Municipalities Report – 5th edition for more details).
Moving beyond efficiency to a strategic use of materials and resources
As zero wasters, our goal is to rethink our relationship with resources, in order to design waste out of the system. This requires shifting mindsets and policies – from waste management to a strategic use of resources. This shift would reduce overall material consumption, in alignment with the planetary boundaries rationale, all the while ensuring that the health, rights and wellbeing of communities are protected.
Despite policy commitments and increased popularity of circular economy models, Europe’s material footprint remains stubbornly high, at 14 tonnes per capita. This is both unsustainable and higher than the global average. The European circularity rate has stagnated at just 11.5% over the past decade, and we still generate 511 kg of municipal waste per person annually (with a slight decrease in the last two years).
Meanwhile, global resource extraction is projected to increase by 60% by 2060, pushing us further beyond the “safe operating space” for humanity. We face a fundamental challenge: current measures focus primarily on improving efficiency rather than addressing resource consumption. What we need is to drastically reduce environmental damage caused by extraction, relating to everything from land and water use, to pollution and biodiversity loss.
But this isn’t just an environmental challenge – it’s an economic and social imperative. In today’s geopolitical landscape, Europe’s economic resilience and strategic autonomy depend on fundamentally reducing the demand for primary raw materials and reliance on imports. The continuity of our extractivist model will be done at the expense of communities inside and outside Europe, with cases raising questions around democratic processes.
As outlined in our recent report, “Towards resource autonomy: Proposals for a Circular Economy Act”, there are policy levers to reduce the demand for materials and align with a future-fit vision for a circular economy, where resource pricing reflects the true environmental cost. This entails exploring options to internalise externalities by enhancing mechanisms such as the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and its complement the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), as well as transitioning to a tax-based scheme.
Such measures would contribute to addressing the ongoing pain point of artificially cheap primary materials. They would also incentivise both the design of products that can be remanufactured or repaired, and the improvement of waste management to ensure materials are recovered to effectively be prepared for reuse, or recycled in ways that substitute primary materials.
The scale of our challenge is daunting, yet within our grasp. The lesson from pioneering communities across Europe is clear and compelling: when we commit to genuine transformation, the seemingly impossible becomes achievable.
Zero waste has always been a no-brainer. Now, facing resource constraints, breached planetary boundaries, and mounting economic tensions, it’s becoming inevitable. The question is not whether Europe will transition to a circular, zero waste future, but how decisively it will embrace this shift—and whether it will seize the full economic, social, and environmental advantages by taking courageous action today.