Municipal solid waste management: lessons from across Europe Increasing resource efficiency is a central aim of European environmental policy, and effective waste management must play a key role in this. A new report assesses waste management in 32 European countries, and identifies key lessons. Landfill taxes and mandatory separate collections of different waste types are highlighted as particularly successful policy instruments. The Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe1 and the Waste Framework Directive2 together recognise the importance of waste management, and set clear targets for the future. This report, from the European Environment Agency (EEA), examines management of municipal solid waste (MSW) between 2001 and 2010 in all 27 EU Member States, plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and Croatia. MSW is mainly produced by households. Statistics suggest there is little evidence of waste reduction, with 21 out of the 32 countries generating more waste per capita in 2010 than in 2001. However, figures on the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) sent to landfill reveal promising trends. The number of countries landfilling 75% or more of their waste fell from 17 in 2001 to 11 in 2010. In 2010, 19 countries landfilled 50% or more of their waste, compared with 22 in 2001. Good progress was found for recycling rates of materials such as paper, glass and plastics, with eight countries increasing their rates by more than 10 percentage points, and 11 countries achieving increases of between 5 and 10 percentage points (calculated as a share of MSW generated). Recycling rates of bio-waste, such as food, however, remained low, increasing by 5 percentage points or more in only 7 countries between 2001 and 2010. Bio-waste is estimated to make up 37% of municipal solid waste in Europe, suggesting that increased focus on this type of waste would be valuable. The report also assesses how policy instruments, such as landfill tax or economic incentives for recycling, have affected recycling rates across Europe. Countries that have banned landfilling of organic waste (such as food), and those that have increased their landfill tax by more than 50%, or where this tax is €30 or more per tonne, have had good results. Other successful measures include mandatory separate collections of different types of waste, such as paper or bio-waste. This indicates that these separate collections for paper, metal, plastic and glass, which must be implemented by 2015 under the Waste Framework Directive, should bring significant increases in recycling for countries which have not yet established such schemes. The authors note that countries where several different instruments have been implemented tend to have higher recycling rates. They also highlight the wide differences in recycling rates within countries, indicating that local and regional policies are also very important to successful waste management. Finally, the authors review the possibilities of reaching the target set out in the Waste Framework Directive: that 50% of all household waste should be prepared for reuse or recycled by 2020. According to a European Commission decision3, countries may document compliance with this target by using four different calculation methods. In the report, the authors use the method that calculates the recycling rate based on MSW data. Although 11 countries have achieved the target based on this method, or look likely to do so, the report concludes that the majority of countries would have to make ‘extraordinary efforts’ to reach the target. For example, nine countries need to increase recycling by 2-4 percentage points every year, a rate of increase only achieved by five countries between 2001-2010, and seven countries would need to increase rates even faster. ec.europa.eu/environment/resource_efficiency/about/roadmap/index_en.htm ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/framework/ eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32011D0753:EN:NOT Source: EEA (2013). Managing municipal solid waste— a review of achievements in 32 European countries. EEA Report No 2/2013. 1-36. DOI: 10.2800/71424. This report is free to view at: eea.europa.eu/publications/managing-municipal-solid-waste Contact:[email protected] Read more about: Resource efficiency, Waste
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 07:54:50 +0000
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