This report critically examines the European Commission’s JRC study on plastic recycling technologies, exposing major methodological flaws that favour chemical recycling. It challenges the credibility of industry-backed data and highlights the true environmental costs of solvent- and pyrolysis-based methods. With clear recommendations for policymakers, it calls for science-based, transparent assessments to guide sustainable recycling strategies.
Available in English.
In view of the announced EU Circular Economy Act, this report stresses that current circular policy measures are insufficient to reduce the absolute levels of resource use in the EU – a blindspot that threatens the EU’s strategic autonomy and competitiveness. Crucially, ensuring that future generations can live well within planetary boundaries requires a fundamental shift in material use.
The failure to fully internalise externalities, like environmental degradation and carbon emissions, keeps the market skewed in favour of primary materials, undercutting the competitiveness of secondary materials and circular business models. The report sets out a roadmap for how the EU can internalise such costs and reshape economic incentives. While the report presents three alternatives, the most immediate measure it proposes is expanding the scope of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to cover additional downstream products and organic chemicals. In the long term, it also recommends pricing a wider set of pollutants and introducing border tax adjustments to reflect their true environmental impacts abroad. Crucially, it calls for a transition toward a tax-based scheme targeting resource use and pollution as a long-term strategy, shifting the burden away from labour-based taxation.
The report also suggests investing additional revenues into projects addressing the consumption of primary resources and targeted policy support to boost the uptake of high-quality recycling and increase the availability of secondary materials.
Available in English.
Zero Waste Europe together with DUH, EEB, ECOS supports strong EU rules to ensure real recycled content in batteries based on physical traceability, ensuring transparency and traceability. All batteries sold in the EU should meet the same standards, and claims about recycled content must reflect what is truly in the product.
The European Union stands at a critical juncture. With six planetary boundaries already breached and a rapidly shifting global economy, the Circular Economy Act (CEA) should serve as a guiding compass to drive how we consume and produce differently, how we empower communities, and build resilient economies through job creation in circular sectors. It must promote value preservation and ensure the strategic use of our resources, while ensuring a safe and toxic-free transition for workers, SMEs, and citizens.
Ahead of the European Commission’s publication of the Clean Industrial Deal (CID), Zero Waste Europe presents its position paper laying out the vision for the CEA: more than a technical fix to the waste crisis, it should serve as a guiding compass within a broader industrial strategy.
Available in English.
Executive summary available in English, Portuguese, Croatian, and German.
Zero Waste Europe, alongside DUH, EEB, and ECOS, welcomes the Joint Research Center’s efforts to develop a robust methodology for calculating and verifying the share of recycled cobalt, lithium, nickel, and lead in the batteries Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1542)
Increasing the use of recycled material in battery helps reducing the need for additional primary extraction. For recycled content targets to deliver meaningfully, the definition and implementation should be transparent and reliable.
Commissioned to A. Rollinson (PhD) by ECOS, Zero Waste Europe, and the Rethink Plastic alliance, this technical paper looks at the concept of “dual-use output” in the accounting for recycled plastic content in the context of the Single-Use Plastic Directive. It proves that this concept betrays the definition of recycling, and poses a threat to the proper promotion of recycled plastic content and high quality recycling.
Available in English.
With the final round of negotiations of the Global Plastics Treaty approaching, this industry landscape overview analyses the dynamic around chemical recycling/recovery over recent years in Europe.
Among the overview takeaways is the industry’s acknowledgement that pyrolysis is not ready to help tackle plastic waste and the climate crisis. In fact, it will need fifty additional years to be implemented at a large scale.
In light of this overview, Zero Waste Europe recommends bringing the plastic sector in line with the Paris Agreement by reducing the production of virgin plastic, stopping funding for pyrolysis and gasification facilities, and that methodologies for determining recycled content in plastics follow rigorous transparency and reliable claims.
Available in English.
Executive Summary available in Hungarian, and Croatian.
Meet “Chemical Recycling” Man. Not your run-of-the-mill comic book superhero. This one is propped up by the petrochemical industries.
These industries like to claim that chemical recycling will create “virgin-like” quality plastic. But beware – this isn’t true! Because of low oil yields and contamination, pyrolysis oil must be diluted by a mixture made up of crude oil, derived from fossil fuel (in some cases by a ratio of over 40:1!). Chemical recycling treatment cannot process the diversity of post-consumer plastic waste.
In this handy infographic, developed from Zero Waste Europe’s Leaky Loop ‘Recycling’ report, we visualise the weakness of “chemical recycling” as a method of recycling by personifying “Chemical Recycling” as an arrogant superhero who thinks they can save us all, only to meet their ‘kryptonite’ through the demands of the public for virgin-like quality.
This second chapter of our two-part series on textiles sketches out what a truly circular and toxic-free system for textiles looks like. The report investigates the current barriers to circularity, identifies solutions, and makes recommendations for policy measures in the EU.
The European textile sector, characterised by its staggering waste generation and significant environmental impact, is at a crossroads and requires immediate action to transition towards the circular economy. Key challenges include the environmental impact of production and health risks for consumers posed by the use of harmful chemical substances, fossil fuel-based synthetic fibres, and the release of microplastics. Furthermore, the low rates of local reuse, repair, and upcycling of textiles as well as the insufficient separate collection capacity hamper circularity.
Another significant obstacle is the insufficiency capacity for recycling in Europe; operations are often not economically viable due to a lack of design for recycling, investments in technologies for closed-loop recycling, but also the slow uptake of recycled content. Finally, the negative social and environmental impacts of exported second-hand textiles pose a huge challenge to regulators.
In the first chapter of this two-part series, ‘A Zero Waste Vision for Fashion – Chapter 1: All We Need Is Less’, we outlined that without a shift to sufficiency in the fashion sector, the industry is on track to exceed several planetary boundaries.
Executive Summary available in English.
Full paper available in English.
NGOs and businesses have formed a unified voice in this joint letter calling on the decision-makers to consider a real compromise by voting for a “polymer-only” allocation method to account for recycled content in the implementing decision of the Single-Use Plastic Directive (SUPD).
Available in English.
This statement serves as a detailed rebuttal to Chemical Recycling Europe’s (CRE) position paper on Zero Waste Europe’s ‘Leaky Loop “Recycling’ report. The report assesses the viability of pyrolysis, while critically analysing and consolidating findings from twenty-two independent peer-reviewed empirical research papers on the quality of pyrolysis oil derived from plastic waste. This rebuttal challenges CRE’s criticisms, accusing them of lacking robust evidence and providing only rhetorical content in their position paper. The author of ‘Leaky Loop “Recycling’ calls for more substantial evidence from CRE to support their claims and highlights inconsistencies in CRE’s references, particularly in the context of life cycle assessments (LCAs) and operational performance data of pyrolysis processes.
Available in English.
In this report prepared by Eunomia Research & Consulting for ClientEarth, ECOS – Environmental Coalition on Standards, and Zero Waste Europe, we explore the current state of PET-based bottle recycling in Europe, as well as its potential for improvement, alongside analysis of common claims made to consumers on bottle labels relating to recycling. Such claims can give an impression of ‘plastic bottle circularity’ that does not reflect reality.
Available in English.
Pyrolysis oil is the favoured process for chemical “recycling” within the EU. However, the rules governing it may result in an unfair monopoly for chemical recycling companies. This infographic makes a compelling case for an EU-wide definition of chemical recycling, and demonstrates how the technology gains an advantage over traditional recycling methods.
Available in English.
This report examines the widely promoted pyrolysis method in plastic waste management, shedding light on its inherent limitations. Pyrolysis has been hailed as a solution by industry, but this study reveals significant drawbacks. Incompatibility with different plastic types, low oil yield, and contamination issues mean that the resulting pyrolysis oil must be heavily diluted with petroleum-based mixtures, in some cases at a ratio of over 40:1. To be used in recycled plastic production, the oil requires energy-intensive purification steps or substantial dilution with virgin petroleum naphtha, both of which are not aligned with the objectives of the EU Green Deal.
Available in English.
Civil society organisations and responsible companies operating in relevant sectors wrote to the European Commission to urge for the prioritisation of robust and transparent chain of custody models for calculating recycled content in the European Commission’s implementing decision that establishes rules for the application of Directive (EU) 2019/904. This has been done in the belief that it is necessary to rectify the decision in order to ensure the highest quality and transparency in the determination of recycled content.
Available in English
There is a consensus that having recycled content obligations in plastic is key to foster the circularity of this material. However, the way to calculate this content is still a major point of discussion.
This infographic presents the rules that must be put in place to ensure real and concrete circularity of this material, benefitting the environment and preventing greenwashing practices.
Available in English, Estonian, French, and Spanish.
