Copenhagen, 5 December 2024
Europe has set ambitious goals to create a competitive circular economy that can be key in supporting innovation, decarbonisation and security. The transition is also needed to halt biodiversity loss and wasteful use of natural resources. Published today, two briefings from the European Environment Agency show the status of circular economy and highlight the need for improving recycling quality.
EEA briefing ‘Europe’s circular economy in facts and figures’ provides a state of play on Europe’s progress from linear production and consumption towards circularity where the value of products and materials are kept in the economy much longer.
Europe has strong policies, knowledge, and financing to support circularity, and the EU businesses and consumers recognise the value of circularity, but its material flows are still predominantly linear, the EEA briefing shows. Resource productivity in Europe is more than 2.5 times higher than the world average and almost half of all waste generated in Europe gets recycled. Still, an average European uses about 14 tonnes of materials and generates 5 tonnes of waste annually, which is among world’s highest levels and beyond sustainable limits.
Shortlink: Europe’s circular economy in facts and figures
EEA briefing ‘Measuring the quality of recycling’ looks at how to increase recycling volumes and improve recycling quality by optimising material loops.
According to the briefing, measures to increase recycling quality include avoiding mixed collection systems, investing in effective sorting technologies and directing recyclables into new products that also have a high recycling potential. These are key measures to advance circular economy while maximising the environmental benefits during the entire recycling value chain.
Shortlink: Measuring the quality of recycling
The two analyses are part of the EEA’s‘Circularity Metrics Lab’work, which uses a range of sources to provide insights on progress towards circular economy. This work supports the implementation and monitoring of theEU’s circular economy action plan, which can play a key role both for Europe’s goals on climate and nature and for the bloc’s competitiveness, innovation and security.
Along with the two briefings, the EEA also published country profiles, offering a view of circular economy policies being implemented at a national level with a particular focus on elements that go beyond EU mandatory elements; and best practices with a focus on policy innovation.
Source – EEA
EEA Briefing “Europe’s circular economy in facts and figures”
EEA Briefing, published 5 December 2024
This briefing presents key facts and figures around Europe’s effort to forge a circular economy. It uses key indicators for acknowledging progress made and identifying areas of improvement. The briefing supports the implementation of the circular economy action plan and builds on metrics from the Circularity Metrics Lab.
Key messages
- With a circularity rate of 11.8% in 2023, Europe consumes a higher proportion of recycled materials than other world regions, although improvements have been limited in recent years. Accelerating the transition to a circular economy has become a policy priority.
- Monitoring the circular economy involves tracking not only material flows but also environmental degradation, as it is associated with resource extraction, processing, and use.
- A strong enabling framework of policies, knowledge, and financing has been developed at the EU level to foster and support the circular economy. Companies and consumers are showing early signs of adopting new business models and consumption patterns. However, linear systems continue to prevail, and the effectiveness of ongoing efforts remains unclear, partly due to limited monitoring data.
- Each European uses about 14 tonnes of material and generates 5 tonnes of waste annually—among the highest levels globally and beyond sustainable limits, posing barriers to narrowing material cycles in Europe. On the positive side, the EU has managed to grow its economy while using a stable amount of resources and generating a stable amount of waste, achieving a modest level of decoupling.
- Europe is highly efficient in extracting value from resources, with resource productivity exceeding €2/kg since 2015, more than 2.5 times the world average. Similarly, Europe recycles almost half of the waste it generates, and would benefit from promoting high-quality recycling and supporting the effective functioning of secondary material markets.
- Material circularity in Europe has been low and relatively stable in recent years, as both recycling volumes and material use have stagnated since 2014. Furthermore, global environmental impacts from Europe’s consumption are increasing, and the environmental benefits of circularity have not yet become apparent.
Complete text of the EEA Briefing
EEA Briefing “Measuring the quality of recycling”
EEA Briefing, published 5 December 2024
This briefing offers a practical definition of recycling quality as an approach to improving waste management operations and increasing circularity in Europe. It is published in support of the EU’s circular economy action plan.
Key messages
As policies that foster recycling continue to be developed, priority should be given to promoting recycling quality and to increasing recycling volumes (which are currently stagnating at around 46%). A high-quality recycling approach aims to deliver not only large quantities of recycled materials but also to keep their value high by preserving their functionality and optimising material loops, all of which are essential pillars of a circular economy.
High-quality recycling goes beyond assessing the technical properties of recycled materials. It means optimising the entire recycling system by increasing its efficiency in capturing recyclables, using cutting-edge recycling technologies to preserve material functionality and ensuring secondary materials find their way into new recyclable products.
Any high-quality recycling option must be realised without generating significant environmental impacts. Therefore, maximising the environmental benefits during the entire recycling value chain must be a factor in high-quality recycling.
Measures to increase recycling quality include avoiding mixed collection systems, investing in effective sorting technologies like optical sorting and using secondary material markets to channel recyclables into new products that also have a high recycling potential. The region where such conditions are most likely to occur in the world is the EU.
A case study for PET bottles shows that the highest quality is achieved in a closed-loop system where the material is collected through deposit-refund schemes and recycled into bottles again. However, other material streams may present different optimal modalities as high-quality recycling also depends on each material/product stream.
Complete text of the EEA Briefing