To further limit the waste shipped outside its territory, the EU is looking at adopting new waste export bans. In this case, any surplus of waste should be absorbed by intra-EU recycling, prevention, and reuse activities. However, the incineration industry claims that potential waste export restrictions should lead to an increase in the need for incineration capacity.
This study demonstrates that the need for further incineration capacity resulting from new waste export bans is neither necessary nor justified.
Available in English.
Municipal waste incineration is currently excluded from the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). If incineration is included, waste companies will have to buy emission credits for each tonne of CO2 they emit when treating household, company, and industrial waste. This additional cost of incineration can act as an incentive for waste prevention and recycling, which will then become more competitive (less costly) than incineration.
A shift of (not biologically pre-treated) waste to landfills should be avoided and is already restricted under the Landfill Directive.
The results of this study, requested by Zero Waste Europe and carried out by CE Delft, show that including incineration under the EU ETS would indeed encourage waste prevention and recycling, yielding both climate and employment benefits.
AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH
This joint paper presents key findings from a review of some of the most commonly cited chemical recycling and recovery LCAs, which reveal major flaws and weaknesses regarding scientific rigour, data quality, calculation methods, and interpretations of the results.
Available in English
Zero Waste Europe and the Bio-based Industries Consortium analyse the untapped potential of biowaste (garden and food waste) in Europe. The first study of its kind details the current generation and capture rates in the EU with dedicated country fact-sheets and municipalities best practice.
Available in English
Zero Waste Europe releases the first ever European study on the state of play and the potential growth for the packaging free shops market. Conducted by Eunomia, in collaboration with Réseau Vrac and the Zero Waste Europe network.
Available in English, Slovenian, Spanish and Hungarian