The EU could save many resources and preserve the health and environment of Europeans if Member States recycle more and better the millions of tonnes of waste produced each year in Europe, warns the European Environment Agency (EEA) in two presentations published on Monday 28 October.
The presentation on EU plastic waste exports shows that, at the beginning of 2019, the EU exported some 150,000 tonnes of plastic waste per month, half as much as in 2015 and 2016, before China restricted its imports and some plastics were banned by a United Nations Convention.
In the short term, this new situation could lead to an increase in landfilling and incineration, warns the EEA, before pushing for investments to increase recycling and waste reuse capacity in Europe. According to the EEA, there is enormous potential for the EU and the directive on the reduction of the consumption of single-use plastics products and the more ambitious objectives of the revised Waste Directives are only the beginning.
The second presentation measures the loss of resources due to the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment, end-of-life batteries and textile and plastic waste. Out of 30 million tonnes of plastic waste generated in the EU in 2015, only 17% was collected for reuse or recycling (5 million tonnes), but 57% of waste due to landfilling and energy recovery were recorded. 83% (25 million tonnes) were lost.
Of these 30 million tonnes of waste, 16.3 million tonnes were plastic packaging waste, 1.15 million tonnes from construction and demolition, 1.2 million tonnes from end-of-life vehicles and 2.4 million tonnes from electronic waste.
1 tonne of plastic waste emits 2.5 tonnes of CO2 from production and 2.7 tonnes of CO2 if incinerated. http://bit.ly/32OXbah (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)