Circular economy Archives

To reduce household waste, a growing number of local authorities in Europe have started putting microchips on waste bins and charging people for the amount of trash they throw away.

While the European Commission is in the process of updating the EU's new bioeconomy strategy, Eastern European countries are calling for more deployment of this technology on their territory to close the gap with Western Europe.

The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, adopted on Thursday (7 December), aims to reduce permitting times for domestic mining and recycling projects, but fails to create the broader conditions necessary for companies to make those investments, the industry says – a warning echoed by green activists.

The European Parliament and the Council of EU member states reached a provisional deal on Monday (4 December) on new ‘ecodesign’ rules to make products easier to repair and recycle while fighting planned obsolescence and banning the destruction of unsold textiles.

Romania’s guarantee return system for plastic, glass and metal packaging went live on Thursday, with an ambitious target to recycle around 7 billion pieces of reusable PET plastic each year to massively increase the country’s current separate collection rate of about 12-13%.

In the run-up to this week's vote in the European Parliament on the draft packaging waste regulation, a Euractiv event looked at the impact of packaging on Europe's forests. Here are the key points.

The European Parliament adopted its position Wednesday (22 November) on legislation to reduce packaging waste, after a tense debate on the role of reuse, recycling and bans.

The European Parliament endorsed a beefed-up 'right to repair' law with a large majority on Tuesday (21 November), setting its position before negotiations with the Council representing the 27 EU countries.

A third round of United Nations negotiations to try to deliver the world's first treaty to control plastic pollution has drawn more than 500 proposals from governments, participants said on Sunday (19 November). Negotiators, who spent a week meeting in the …

Packaging waste interest groups are aggressively lobbying at the European Parliament premises, in breach of the recently-approved ‘Qatargate’ internal rules, an official source from the European Parliament told Euractiv.

The European Commission launched infringement proceedings against Austria on Thursday for failing to comply with new EU rules on waste and railway standardisation.

Thirty-one countries have pledged to stop all deep-sea mining in the polar regions at the One Planet Polar Summit, which ended in Paris on Friday (10 November), in a deal that Norway has not yet signed amid criticism of its recent decision to allow Arctic mining.

Negotiators for EU governments and the European Parliament reached a deal on Monday (13 November) on targets for domestic supply of critical minerals such as lithium and nickel to reduce its reliance on third countries, principally China.

As the world's nations enter another round of talks this week on creating a first-ever treaty to contain plastic pollution, officials are bracing for tough negotiations over whether to limit the amount of plastic being produced or just to focus on the management of waste.

Portuguese anti-mining groups have urged the government to suspend and review all lithium projects while authorities investigate alleged corruption in the handling of "green" energy deals that have led to the resignation of the prime minister.

A handful of Canadian, German and Australian critical mineral explorers plan to command premium prices for key metals used in electric vehicles, promising quality and consistency in exchange for shifting reliance away from China, the dominant producer and price-setter.

Bottled water producers such as Coca-Cola, Danone and Nestlé are making misleading claims about the green credentials of their plastic packaging, 13 European consumer groups and umbrella federation BEUC said on Tuesday (7 November).

The EU is moving forward with new legislation to boost the recycling of rare earths contained in permanent magnets, used in everything from wind turbines to electric vehicles as well as home appliances like washing machines and microwave ovens.

Following the EU's recent push for greater autonomy on critical minerals, France has begun preparations for a "major mining inventory" to explore the resources of its subsoil - though experts urge that time is of the essence.

The signature contoured bottle from Coca-Cola, alongside other designer bottles for whiskey or perfume, could end up being pushed out of the European market under draft EU rules to promote reusable packaging, a move that is causing jitters in the drinks industry.

A leading committee of the European Parliament adopted on Wednesday (25 October) its version of the Right to Repair directive, including bicycles in its scope, as well as other options to help consumers with a defective product.

Lawmakers in the European Parliament’s environment committee will vote on their approach to new rules tackling packaging waste on Tuesday (24 October) amid warnings from environmental groups that the law risks being watered down due to a concerted pushback from Italian MEPs.

China’s decision on Friday (20 October) to curb graphite exports raised the question of creating new EU strategic stocks of critical raw materials, a question that has so far been largely overlooked by Brussels.

China, the world's top graphite producer, on Friday (20 October) announced new curbs on exports of certain types of graphite, key to making batteries for electric vehicles, in its latest move to control supplies of critical minerals in response to challenges over its manufacturing dominance.