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In bid to ensure waste is managed as a resource in all EU countries by 2020 the Commission launched yesterday (September 20) a “Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe”. Despite a list of measures to increase recycling and economic incentives to stimulate demand for recyclables many green groups already labelled the roadmap as too vague.
The document state that reuse and recycling must be given high priority in order to ensure that, by 2020, all waste is managed as a resource and that it can be fed back into the economy as a raw material.
In order to achieve this a number of commitments should be achieved, including:
• By 2013/14, stimulating the secondary materials market and demand for recyclables through economic incentives and developing end-of-waste criteria;
• Reviewing existing targets for prevention, reuse, recycling, recovery and landfill diversion targets in 2014, to move towards an economy based on reuse and recycling;
• In 2012, to consider the introduction of minimum recycled material rates, reusability criteria and extended producer responsibility for key products;
• In 2013/14, to explore the potential to align legislation on various waste streams to “improve coherence”;
• Continue both EU-wide and international work to eradicate illegal waste shipments;
• Making sure, in 2012/13, that public funding from the EU budget prioritises activities higher up the newly statutory waste hierarchy;
• And, facilitating the exchange of best practice on waste between EU member states and to take steps, in 2013/14, to combat more effectively breaches of EU waste rules.
Commenting on the roadmap, European environment commissioner Janez Potocnik said: “Green growth is the only sustainable future – for Europe and the world. Industry and environment need to work hand in hand – in the long term our interests are the same.”
On the other hand, environmental groups criticised EU’s “roadmap” and labelled it to vague as it failed to include concrete policies aimed to ensure Europe’s sustainable economic growth through the improvement of resource efficiency.
“Either we will regulate the EU to become a resource-efficient economy or we will keep on dreaming about it,” said Pieter de Pous, policy director at Brussels based European Environmental Bureau (EEB).
Another green group which also criticised the “roadmap” was Friends of the Earth (FoE) stating that it lacked urgent measures required to reduce Europe’s consumption of energy, water and land.
Either way the report highlights two important points. First, the need for businesses and consumers to use resources sustainably and second, recognising that reducing waste, and turning the waste that remains into a resource is vital towards the dreamed zero waste economy.
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