Friday 20 March 2020

‘More ambition is needed across EU to divert waste from landfill’

More ambition is needed across the EU to divert waste from landfill.

That's according to the Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants, European Suppliers of Waste-to-Energy Technology, Euroheat & Power, the European Federation for Waste Management and Environmental Services and Municipal Waste Europe, which welcome the European Commission’s ambition on its new Circular Economy Action Plan but stress "the cornerstone of a circular economy is missing".

They say this cornerstone should be the implementation of measures required to prevent the leaking of waste streams suitable for recycling or recovery to large scale landfills - despite some progress on recycling rates across Europe having been made, approximately 175 million tonnes of waste are still being sent to landfill each year, not including the "enormous amount" of mineral wastes sent there.

The organisations say this leads to more than 140 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions being generated unneccessarily.

They suggest municipal waste is just a small part of the total waste volume and stress diverting industrial and commercial waste from landfills "would not only bring environmental benefits" but provide an "easy win" for greenhouse gas mitigation in the waste sector.

They have called on the EU and international policymakers to use "the most effective measures to minimise large scale landfilling as soon as possible by ensuring the implementation of the existing targets on municipal waste" and have urged for an integrated approach on industrial and commercial waste to stimulate recycling and cap the amount of rubbish than can be sent to landfill.