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Plastics are essential in society. Yet value chains are unsustainable — generating emissions and increasing waste and pollution. Reducing such impacts demands moving towards a circular and sustainable plastics system. This briefing covers plastics production and consumption in Europe, the impacts on the environment and climate change, and how we can shift to a circular economy for plastics. Work from the Circularity Metrics Lab on plastics (EEA, 2024a) and a report on the Circularity Metrics Lab for Plastics from the European Topic Centre on Circular Economy and Resource Use inform this briefing.
The circular economy is now a widely accepted concept. It goes beyond just managing waste: it is more about keeping the value of materials high and making them last longer in their intended use. It also seeks to design unnecessary material use out of the economy. This requires new business models and a more decisive transition from ownership models to service-based solutions. A comprehensive set of new circularity policies has been introduced at EU level and there is evidence of increased circular activities in EU Member States.
EU policymakers have recently decided to introduce a direct ban on the destruction of textiles and footwear with some exemptions for small, micro and medium-sized companies. In this briefing, the EEA provides an overview of what is currently known about the volumes and destruction of returned and unsold textiles in Europe. The growth of online shopping, flexible return practices, changed consumer preferences and fast-fashion business strategies in Europe have resulted in increased shares of returned and unsold textiles. Over the past years, fast fashion as well as luxury brands, have been reported to destroy returned or unsold clothing, shoes and other textiles. Textile product destruction, where products are destroyed by retailers, brands or manufacturers before use, is an example of a resource ‘take-make-waste’ approach, highlighting the inefficiency of current linear production-consumption systems which cause avoidable negative impacts on the environment and climate.
Waste and circular economy actions contribute to reducing the need for new primary materials and the associated greenhouse gas emissions linked to the extraction and processing of resources. Including circular economy and waste activities in the reporting on climate change mitigation policies and measures can help provide a fuller account of a country’s mitigation efforts. This approach can further reveal policy opportunities to unlock additional emission reductions and help countries reach their net-zero targets.
Unprecedented sustainability challenges from accumulating environmental and climate pressures and impacts - to a large extent caused by unsustainable consumption - require a fundamental shift in our production and consumption systems in Europe and beyond. Such a shift calls for exploring what conditions and pathways are for sustainable and circular consumption in Europe.
Plastics play an essential role in modern society. However, their value chain is currently unsustainable, contributing to the generation of climate changing emissions and increasing waste and pollution. Reducing such impacts while retaining plastics’ usefulness requires a shift towards a more circular and sustainable plastics system. This shift can be accelerated by scaling up good practice examples and making improvements across the plastics value chain.
Buildings are important in EU environmental and climate policy for several reasons, including their greenhouse gas emissions and high consumption of material resources. Improved design and building techniques will produce highly efficient new buildings but more than 85% of today’s buildings are likely to still be in use in 2050.
Municipal waste accounts for 27 % of the total waste generated in the EU (excluding mineral waste). Due to its complex composition and ubiquity, it can have significant negative impacts on human health and on the environment if not managed properly. The 2020 EU Circular Economy Action Plan has established an objective of halving the quantity of municipal waste that is not recycled or prepared for reuse by 2030. At the same time, all EU member states will have to recycle or prepare for reuse at least 60% of generated municipal waste by 2030. This briefing explores how these two targets are linked and how more ambitious waste prevention actions will be key for achieving them simultaneously.
The existing European Union’s (EU) monitoring framework for circular economy was established to track how the EU is transitioning to a more circular economy. To avoid unnecessary added costs and quickly establishing the EU’s monitoring framework, it has been predominantly based on existing data and covers essential elements of the transition. To complement this macro-view on how circular economy progresses in Europe, the European Environment Agency is exploring opportunities to collect new types of data generated for other purposes and, working with other partners, use them to better understand this transformation of Europe’s economy. This briefing provides an overview of four different data types used to prototype new indicators covering different circular economy processes not covered well by data today.
From the perspective of European consumption, textiles have on average the fourth highest negative life cycle impact on the environment and climate change, after food, housing and mobility. A shift to a circular textile production and consumption system with longer use, and more reuse and recycling could reduce those impacts along with reductions in overall consumption. One important measure is circular design of textiles to improve product durability, repairability and recyclability and to ensure the uptake of secondary raw materials in new products.
Awareness is increasing about the presence of microplastics in our seas, land and air - and their negative effects on ecosystems, animals and people. Microplastics are directly released into our environment or result from degradation of larger pieces of plastic. Wearing and washing of textiles from synthetic (plastic) fibres is a recognised source of microplastics in the environment. Textiles and plastics are among the key value chains identified in the EU Circular Economy Action Plan and are addressed in its implementation.
This briefing provides a snapshot of the status of the traded non-hazardous, recyclable wastes within the EU in order to provide knowledge and information in support of the review of the EU’s Waste Shipment Regulation. The information and knowledge in the briefing aims at improving the functioning of secondary material markets by offering insights and potential solutions so that waste is treated in the best possible way in line with the principles of the waste hierarchy.
Renewable energy technologies, such as wind turbines, solar photovoltaic panels and batteries, are essential for Europe’s transition to climate neutrality. Deployment, maintenance and replacement of this infrastructure requires significant resources, including many substances included in the EU list of critical raw materials. Waste arising from end-of-life clean energy infrastructure is projected to grow up to 30-fold over the next 10 years, presenting significant opportunities to reduce consumption of scarce raw materials by recycling metals and other valuable resources back into production systems. Circular economy approaches such as repair and upgrading of equipment and recycling up to 90% of end-of-life infrastructure can underpin the sustainability credentials of Europe’s renewable energy transition.
The COVID19 pandemic is having immense effects on societies across the world. It has caused millions of deaths worldwide and challenged our health systems and economies. The pandemic - and responses to it, involving lockdowns, use of personal protection equipment, and stay-at-home measures - has far reaching health and economic consequences. This briefing deals with the less visible impacts on our environment and climate originating from changed use of single use-plastics because of the pandemic.
The EU chemicals strategy for sustainability aims to ensure that chemicals are ‘produced and used in a way that maximises their contribution to society … while avoiding harm to the planet and to current and future generations’ (EC, 2020). Building sustainability dimensions into products’ design phase can support the delivery of these objectives. Key features of sustainable products include chemical safety, recyclability and a low environmental impact. This briefing describes approaches that are safe and sustainable by design and identifies enabling conditions, which support their uptake, and the related challenges and opportunities.
The EU chemicals strategy for sustainability aims to ensure that chemicals are ‘produced and used in a way that maximises their contribution to society … while avoiding harm to the planet and to current and future generations’ (EC, 2020). Building sustainability dimensions into products’ design phase can support the delivery of these objectives. Key features of sustainable products include chemical safety, recyclability and a low environmental impact. This briefing describes approaches that are safe and sustainable by design and identifies enabling conditions, which support their uptake, and the related challenges and opportunities.
Plastic-based — or ‘synthetic’— textiles are woven into our daily lives in Europe. They are in the clothes we wear, the towels we use and the bed sheets we sleep in. They are in the carpets, curtains and cushions we decorate our homes and offices with. And they are in safety belts, and car tyres, workwear and sportswear. Synthetic textile fibres are produced from fossil fuel resources, such as oil and natural gas. Their production, consumption and related waste handling generate greenhouse gas emissions, use non-renewable resources and can release microplastics. This briefing provides an overview of the synthetic textile economy in Europe, analyses environmental and climate impacts, and highlights the potential for developing a circular economy value chain.
The circular economy has become a priority policy topic in Europe (EC, 2015, 2020) and is a key objective of the European Green Deal. There is increasing interest in the potential for altering traditional business models to enable materials and products to be reused and remain in the economy for as long as possible — as opposed to being used once and then discarded. This briefing presents an analytical framework, identifying actions that can be taken to implement circular business models effectively.
Plastics play an essential role in modern society, but also lead to significant impacts on the environment and climate. Reducing such impacts while retaining the usefulness of plastics requires a shift towards a more circular and sustainable plastics system. This report tells the story of plastics, and their effect on the environment and climate, and looks at their place in a European circular economy.
Together, European countries have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions significantly since 1990. Achieving climate neutrality by 2050, however, will demand additional and long-lasting climate mitigation strategies. With materials management accounting for up to two thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions, one promising area for further reductions is the circular economy. A new methodological approach helps to identify circular efforts that can contribute to reducing emissions in any sector and has highlighted key ways to cut emissions in the buildings sector.
EU legislation includes recycling targets for municipal, construction and demolition, and electronic waste. This briefing shows that there is significant potential to increase recycling from all of these streams. However, to fully exploit this potential, current barriers need to be overcome, e.g. price competition from virgin resource alternatives, infrastructure capacity and the complexity of certain waste products. This also requires strong implementation of targeted regulations to increase separate collection. Implementing new policy measures, some of which are already included in Europe’s 2020 circular economy action plan, can both directly and indirectly exploit the potential for increased recycling.
This briefing analyses the opportunities to reduce environmental and climate impacts from electronics by increasing product lifetime, delaying obsolescence and improving their suitability for circular economy business models.
Bio-waste – mainly food and garden waste – is a key waste stream with a high potential for contributing to a more circular economy. This report provides an overview of bio-waste generation, prevention, collection, and treatment in Europe.
An overview of the policies, approaches and targets of 32 European countries
Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) comprises the largest waste stream in the EU, with relatively stable amounts produced over time and high recovery rates. Although this may suggest that the construction sector is highly circular, scrutiny of waste management practices reveals that C&DW recovery is largely based on backfilling operations and low-grade recovery, such as using recycled aggregates in road sub-bases. This briefing examines how circular economy-inspired actions can help achieve waste policy objectives, namely waste prevention and increase both the quantity and the quality of recycling for C&DW while reducing hazardous materials in the waste.
Textiles are fundamental to our society, providing us with clothing, shoes, carpets, curtains, furniture, etc. for homes, offices and public buildings. The textiles industry employs millions of people worldwide, making it among the largest in the world and an important part of Europe’s manufacturing industry. However, textile production and consumption cause significant environmental, climate and social impacts by using resources, water, land and chemicals and emitting greenhouse gases and pollutants. This briefing provides an EU perspective of the environmental and climate pressures from textile production and consumption, and discusses how circular business models and regulation can help move us towards a circular textiles economy.
Europe relies heavily on material resources for almost all of society’s activities. Its extraction and production of material resources have significant impacts on the environment and human health, as well as on the economy. It is essential to reuse such resources in European economies, keeping their value high, delivering value for longer periods and reducing the need to use virgin materials. While progress is being made in Europe, by implementing an ambitious waste policy and the Circular Economy Framework, significant amounts of valuable resources are still lost through inefficient waste management practices. This briefing describes material losses in Europe for some key waste streams, namely waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), end-of-life batteries, plastic waste and textile waste.
Europe is at crossroads regarding its management of plastic, plastic waste and the plastic waste trade. Rapidly growing amounts of plastic have negative environmental and climate impacts. Plastic and plastic waste are traded worldwide. Exporting plastic waste from the EU to Asia is a means of dealing with insufficient recycling capacities in the EU. Waste import restrictions in China have shifted exports to other countries. Because some types of plastic waste have been added to the United Nations Basel Convention, the option of exporting plastic waste is becoming increasingly difficult. This requires policymakers, business and other actors to build a more robust and circular economy for plastic in Europe.
Fostering circular material use requires a broad system perspective and extensive stakeholder involvement. The entire product lifecycle — including the design, production, consumption and waste phases — needs to be addressed in a coherent way. The enablers of and barriers to circular business models need to be well understood and addressed before innovation and competitiveness can be enhanced.
For references, please go to https://eea.europa.eu./themes/waste/resource-efficiency/reports-about-resource-efficiency or scan the QR code.
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