This is the story of the LeydeResiduosYA platform, born from the need to ensure the full implementation of Spain’s 2022 waste law. The law introduced bold measures: banning hazardous chemicals in packaging, promoting reusable packaging, and setting ambitious waste reduction targets. Yet, progress stalled due to widespread industry resistance and weak enforcement.
By October 2023, NGOs like Alianza Residuo Cero recognised that only strong civil society pressure could break the deadlock. They united to launch LeydeResiduosYA, a platform dedicated to holding the government accountable for meeting reuse targets and implementing the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). This collaborative effort represents a powerful push for action, ensuring Spain’s waste law delivers on its promise.
In Slovakia, the municipality of Partizánske developed an innovative bio-waste programme by actively involving the community and bringing waste handling under local control. The initiative tackled kitchen and garden waste separately, promoting home composting and implementing tailored collection strategies for single-family households and multi-apartment buildings.
As a result, 95% of single-family households now compost at home, reducing mixed (non-recyclable) waste by 118 kg per person—a 36% drop—in the last 8 years. City-wide, mixed waste has decreased by 18%. Impressively, these achievements come with a net positive impact on the public budget, as savings have exceeded the programme’s costs.
Available in English, Croatian, and Dutch.
The Sicilian municipality of Calatafimi Segesta may be small, but it provides one of Europe’s leading examples of how an island municipality can implement an effective zero waste strategy whilst also focusing on improving the lives of the local community. Despite receiving high-levels of tourism each year and having a dense, historic area in its centre, Calatafimi Segesta still achieved a 85% separate collection rate and generated just 88kgs of residual waste per person in 2022.
The municipality achieved these impressive results through a process of implementing a zero waste strategy at its core, with a focus on door-to-door collection of materials and the prioritisation of capturing organics, with supplementary incentives offered to residents who home composted. The decision not to build or extend local incineration capacity has allowed the municipality to implement ambitious policies that have delivered results.
Since its political commitment to become a Zero Waste City in 2011, the municipality has doubled the amount of materials separately collected for recycling and reuse. In this same timespan, they have reduced the volume of residual waste by two-thirds.
Available in English, Italian, and Croatian.
The German city of Tübingen took the pioneering steps of introducing a city wide tax on single-use plastic items, which formed just one part of a wider strategy to foster reuse within the city. The tax applied to both single-use cutlery (20 cents) and single-use packaging for food and beverage containers (50 cents).
The city supplemented this action to support businesses transition to reusable alternatives by providing subsidies for dishwashers and directly connecting them with companies who have the equipment and infrastructure already for reusable packaging. Whilst the legality of the tax is now under review within the German legal system, the story of Tübingen highlights how cities can take bold and important action to tackle the flood of single-use items on their streets.
In the wine industry, single-use glass is heavily used for packaging. On the one hand, glass has the greatest environmental impacts compared to other packaging materials (i.e. PET, aluminium, and beverage carton). On the other hand, glass is 100% reusable and 100% recyclable at the end of its life cycle, and is an inert material, which makes it more suitable as a food contact material.
The reWINE project proves that a circular and more sustainable way of consuming wine is possible.
Let’s start the tasting tour!
Available in Catalan, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Slovenian, and Spanish.
This report, produced by Zero Waste Latvia, provides information about the waste that cannot be recycled, which ends up in a lightweight packaging container, its composition and the mistakes most often made by the public. Based on the results obtained, the report’s authors make recommendations to manufacturers and decision-makers to promote correct sorting of waste, improve communication intended for the public and take other strategic measures to improve the waste management system.
In 2011, the city of Milan started implementing an ambitious scheme to separately collect bio-waste and recycle it. With 1.4 million inhabitants and an extremely densely populated area, this wasn’t an easy task as bio-waste collection schemes are more difficult to set up in big cities. However, after 10 years, Milan is now one of the leading examples, with 95 kilograms of bio-waste collected per inhabitant and a 62% waste collection rate.
With the 1 January 2024 deadline for all EU Member States to collect bio-waste separately, the story of Milan shows how other cities across Europe can follow in their footsteps to effectively collect and manage food waste, even in the challenging circumstances that large, densely-populated cities provide.
Available in English, Italian, French, Slovak, Ukrainian, and Hungarian.
In Newport County, the social enterprise company Wastesavers has been working with the Council to implement one of the best structured separate collection systems in Europe today. In 2019 Newport not only achieved a recycling rate of 66%, but it also offers one of the lowest cost for households within Wales, supplemented by having high-quality recyclables with a low contamination rate.
The story of Newport shows that when separate collection systems prioritise quality over just quantity, and invest heavily in meaningfully engaging with the community, combined with well-designed equipment, world-leading results can be achieved whilst simultaneously reducing costs for local residents.
The impact of all the waste that is generated in Europe continues to be felt in countries and communities thousands of miles away. This case study illustrates the impacts inflicted by international waste trade upon Malaysia and shows how the country has responded.
Available in English
The German municipality of Munich committed to going beyond recycling by investing in a zero waste strategy focused on reuse and repair.
The case study focused on the experience of Halle 2, the flagship reuse hub of Munich that sits at the heart of its circular economy strategy. By selling goods that are collected across the 12 Munich Recycling Centers and then repaired, Halle 2 extends the lifespan of useful everyday items that would otherwise have become waste. AWM, the public company that owns the reuse hub, calculates around 1,000 tonnes of items are reused or repaired at Halle 2 each year.
In July 2020, Munich’s City Council passed a resolution affirming its commitment to developing a robust circular economy and zero waste strategy.
Within just 5 years, the city of Prelog in northern Croatia has tripled the percentage of its separately collected waste. The city has reduced the amount of the mixed waste local residents produce to below 100 kg per capita, becoming a zero waste best practice in Croatia and beyond.
How did this happen, in spite of much criticism saying the set goals were unattainable and ‘utopian’ for the Croatian context?
- Door-to-door separate waste collection
- Construction of new local waste management infrastructures
- Create a fair but profitable system
- Effective education & communication programmes for citizens
- Strong cooperation between the NGO Zelena akcija / Friends of the Earth Croatia / Zero Waste Croatia, the city of Prelog, and 11 other neighbouring municipalities (of different political affiliations) operated by the public company PRE-KOM from Prelog.
The story of Prelog and their waste management company PRE-KOM showcases the diversity of zero waste. When done successfully – through background research, effective communication and education programmes for citizens, the building of proper infrastructure and flexibility within the system to adapt and improve, zero waste is a strategy that can be successfully implemented in a wide range of contexts seen across Europe.
This Case Study written by ToxicoWatch puts the spotlight on the REC Dutch waste incineration plant, highlighting current failures to provide transparency, clear policy guidance and effective implementation.
Available in English.
Zero Waste Europe releases its new Consumption & Production Case Study, which promotes zero waste business models: The Story of Too Good To Go, a fast growing company making the link between shops whose food is about to be wasted and consumers who love a good deal.
Available in English, French, Swedish, Italian, Portuguese and German.
Evidence shows that waste incineration has a high impact on our climate, yet it’s not part of any scheme to progressively reduce CO2 emissions. This case study written by Žiedinė Ekonomika uses the example of the “Fortum Klaipeda” waste co-incineration plant in Lithuania to illustrate how waste incineration plants could be included under the EU ETS at EU or national level and outlines at the potential impact such inclusion on driving better waste management in Europe.
Available in English and French.
The Story of Unverpackt is the sixth chapter of the Zero Waste Europe Consumption & Production Case Studies series aimed at promoting zero waste business models.
Since opening in February 2014, Germany’s first packaging-free store Unverpackt in Kiel, has been pursuing a drastic reduction of packaging waste while motivating customers to rethink their consumer behavior. More than 100 stores in Germany are already following this example, the zero waste retail movement has only just begun.
Available in English and German.
CEE Bankwatch Network, Counter Balance and Zero Waste Europe have published an analysis on the Belgrade solid waste public-private partnership (PPP). A case plagued by legal irregularities and circumvented binding decision-making processes.
Available in English.
Waste incinerators in the Netherlands create a large amount of toxic residues (bottom and fly ash) which are increasingly used in so called useful applications under the Green Deal agreement. The evidence shows that the current standards for the safety of this practice are outdated posing a significant threat to human health and the environment.
Available in English & Lithuanian
Toxic emissions and polluted air: the Waste-To-Energy plant of Sant Adria de Besos in Barcelona works at a high cost for the environment and the local community. Hungry for more? Read our blog in English.
Available in Spanish