The Circular Economy Act (CEA) could overcome the current limitations of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which prioritises waste management over more impactful circular strategies such as reuse and repair.
To drive real waste reduction, Zero Waste Europe proposes splitting EPR fees into two distinct budgets: one for waste management and another for waste reduction (supporting mid-level R-strategies). A temporary ‘transition to circularity’ fund could bridge the gap until detailed data is available to introduce specific targets.
Strong governance, transparent reporting, and legally binding targets are essential to ensure EPR schemes effectively finance and scale circular business models across the EU.
Policy brief and infographic available in English.
To address the European Union’s critical challenges in food waste prevention and management, Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) proposes introducing Extended Producer Responsibility for food products (EPRFP) in the upcoming EU Circular Economy Act. This measure could partially shift financial responsibility from public authorities and taxpayers to food producers and retailers, who have significant influence over consumer behaviour and waste generation patterns.
ZWE’s policy recommendations on EPRFP follow the findings and learnings of ”The case for Extended Producer Responsibility for food products” study, co-authored with the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC).
Available in English.
Our society is continuously, and often unknowingly, exposed to a low-level mixture of harmful chemicals – a problem that remains both underestimated and largely unaddressed. This policy briefing highlights the clear health and economic consequences of the European Union’s (EU) lax toxic-chemical policies, and proposes that these be strengthened in the upcoming Circular Economy Act (CEA).
The CEA would thus serve as a guiding compass to drive resilient economies and strategic use of the EU’s resources, while ensuring a safe and toxic-free transition for workers, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and citizens. A CEA with stringent toxic-chemical policies would allow the EU to harness circularity and competitiveness to better protect its citizens, and prevent a future public health crisis.
Available in English.
Zero Waste Europe’s latest policy brief proposes introducing an EU-wide cap-and-trade system for residual waste, i.e. the waste that ends up in landfills or incinerators. Rather than focusing solely on “not landfilling,” this approach would set clear limits on residual waste generation, rewarding countries and operators that reduce it and applying levies where it exceeds agreed benchmarks.
By capping residual waste, the proposal would drive waste prevention, reuse, and recycling, while simultaneously cutting greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) linked to landfilling and incineration. A fair, transparent system of “passive trading” between Member States would ensure shared responsibility and accelerate the EU’s transition to a truly circular, climate-neutral economy.
Available in English.
Executive Summary in English and Polish.
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.
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, German, and Greek.
The EU’s current consumption of natural resources far exceeds sustainable levels, contributing to multiple crises including climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality. This briefing addresses alongside a coalition of environmental NGOs by calling for an EU framework on resource use reduction based on sufficiency measures. This approach aims to align with 1.5°C decarbonisation pathways, reduce dependency on imports, lower energy demand, and strengthen EU competitiveness. The proposal suggests a material footprint target of 5 tonnes per capita by 2050, emphasising the need for sufficiency policies co-created with citizens. Whilst the EU has set ambitious environmental objectives, it lacks a coherent policy framework for resource reduction. The briefing urges MEPs to adopt a legislative initiative report calling on the European Commission to prioritise sufficiency approaches, which are increasingly supported by scientists, policymakers, and citizens as essential for meeting sustainability goals and ensuring a fairer, cleaner, and more resilient Europe.
Available in English and Ukrainian.
The Methane Matters Coalition, a consortium of European non-governmental organisations dedicated to securing emission reduction targets across various sectors, has prepared a comprehensive briefing for the new Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). This briefing outlines essential steps for making methane reduction a priority during the upcoming legislative term.
Available in English.
Food packaging often contains hazardous substances, particularly when made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC). PVC requires numerous additives, many of which are harmful, such as phthalates linked to reproductive and developmental issues. Annually, over 400,000 tonnes of PVC are used in European packaging, posing significant health risks due to the migration of these chemicals into food. The European Chemicals Agency highlights the urgent need to mitigate these risks, especially for vulnerable groups like children.
PVC also contributes to the microplastic crisis, with particles found in human tissues, causing potential long-term health issues. Recycling PVC is challenging and often not feasible, leading to environmental harm from landfilling and incineration. Safer, more recyclable alternatives are available, and major companies are already moving away from PVC. Phasing out PVC in food packaging is essential for protecting human health and the environment.
Available in English.
An estimated 40% of food is wasted globally, which causes an estimated 8–10% of global emissions, and uses an estimated 28% of the world’s agricultural land area, larger than China and India combined.
65 organisations from 20 EU countries, including Zero Waste Europe, have signed a statement calling for the EU to introduce legally-binding targets to reduce EU food loss and waste by 50% from farm to fork by 2030.
This briefing provides evidence that ambitious legally binding food waste reduction targets for EU Member States under the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) are both feasible and will result in significant cost savings.
Available in English.
Ahead of the EU bio-waste separate collection mandate in January 2024, LIFE BIOBEST‘s Deliverable 5.2 identifies the gaps in the regulatory framework and systemic barriers obstructing efficient bio-waste management with high capture rates of high-quality material.
LIFE BIOBEST interviewed 15+ expert stakeholders from across the EU to discuss the difficulties of meeting the landfill and recycling targets as well as the mandate for separate collection of bio-waste. This report investigates the status of transposition and management results of the EU legal framework and proposes recommendations and calls to action.
Available in English.
Without a shift to sufficiency in the fashion sector, the industry is on track to exceed planetary boundaries.
In this paper, ZWE outlines a list of entry points for the transition towards sufficiency and urges governments to take proactive steps to adopt best practices. More precisely, the paper suggests a legal framework banning the destruction of unsold goods, setting a target for textile waste reduction and resource use and transforming EU waste legislation into a ‘Resource Framework Directive’ in line with a 1.5-degree target.
The paper underlines that governments should not rely on so-called consumer behaviour ‘nudges’ to cut down on fashion consumption and must address the cause of the current waste crisis: the fast fashion business model that relies on selling large volumes of trendy items. The textile sector’s transformation is a critical milestone, yet it’s only part of a broader economic shift toward sufficiency, well-being, and resilience within planetary boundaries.
This paper serves as the inaugural chapter in a two-part series exploring fashion and textiles along the entire value chain. The subsequent chapter will delve into circularity, covering optimal design, use, reuse, recycling, and end-of-life treatment of garments.
Executive Summary available in English, Italian, and Croatian.
Full paper available in English.
Despite increased attention being paid to the sustainability and principles of circular economy in the European Union, there is a general lack of holistic and harmonised legislative approaches towards materials’ circularity and the critical aspects of their chemical safety. A more coherent EU policy on consumer safety issues is not only highly desirable, but human biomonitoring data on harmful chemicals detected in the entire EU population show that it is urgently needed.
This ZWE policy briefing lays out proof and tried-and-test arguments towards toxic-free and future-proof packaging.
Executive Summary available in English and French.
Full briefing available in English.
This policy briefing by Reloop and Zero Waste Europe provides guidelines for legislating mixed waste sorting (MWS) in the context of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). The guidelines were developed to clarify the amendment proposed by the European Parliament regarding the use of mixed wastes for ‘renewable energy’ purposes. The document recommends applying MWS systems of defined quality to remove fossil-derived materials to ensure that only biogenic waste is used for renewable energy generation. Following the requirement, the operators would either need to pre-sort the waste on-site or demonstrate that all waste received has undergone sorting prior to it being delivered for incineration.
Available in English.
This report and policy briefing studied whether, and to what extent, the EU recycling targets can be met through improved recyclability of packaging and increased separate collections of municipal waste—and, if not, what measures could be taken to achieve them.
It has examined the role mixed waste sorting (MWS) could play in three EU countries with high recycling performance – Germany, Belgium, and Sweden. The conclusion was concluded that, in addition to separate collection and improved recyclability of plastic packaging, a full roll-out of effective MWS is necessary to ensure that recycling targets are consistently met and to ensure progress towards the EU’s wider carbon emissions reduction goals.
Available in English.
When it comes to Food Contact Materials (FCMs), the use of recycled content potentially creates new pathways through which humans can be exposed to hazardous chemicals in contaminated recycled material flows.
Today, recycling technologies have not proved to be able to remove all toxic chemicals already present in plastic in the first place and current regulations shift this responsibility away from plastic producers to recyclers, who struggle to process many unrecyclable or difficult-to-manage plastics,
Regulatory framework must be ambitious enough to urgently phase out the most hazardous chemicals to ensure food packaging and other food contact articles are truly safe for use, reuse and recycling.
The full report is available in English. The Executive Summary is available in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and German.
When dealing with packaging there seems to be confusion between reuse and prevention. Despite the fact that both contribute to reducing waste arisings, from a policy-making perspective they should be treated as different concepts.
Available in English.
This paper compiles evidence of the boundless aspects of packaging pollution, and demonstrates how solving the packaging issue can help tackling other major world problems, such as global warming, toxicity in our food and beverages and waste trade.
Available in English.