The EU is exporting ‘more waste than ever’ the European Environment Agency (EEA) has found in a new report.

The EEA’s ‘Movements of waste across the EU's internal and external borders’ report, found that waste shipments between EU countries and transfers of waste outside the EU for recovery or disposal have risen due to two major factors.

These are: ‘increasingly stringent and harmonised waste policies in the EU’ that have ‘required countries to find new approaches to waste management’ including ‘diverting substantial amounts of waste from landfills towards recycling’; and ‘increasing demands for recyclable materials, both within the EU and beyond’ due to the fact that ‘resources have become more costly’.

According to the assessment, exports of waste iron and steel, and copper, aluminium and nickel from member states doubled between 1999 and 2011, while waste precious metal exports increased by a factor of three and waste plastics by a factor of five.

Similarly, the trade of hazardous waste, which may be explosive, flammable, irritative, toxic or corrosive, more than doubled in the period 2000-2009, growing by 131 per cent.

Variance in the costs of recovery or disposal in different locations is also attributed as an important driver in these figures, as in some instances waste management facilities in a neighbouring country may be ‘closer or cheaper to reach’ than domestic facilities.

According to the EEA, the international trade in recyclable material is expected to continue to grow, driven by ‘more recycling, growing global competition for resources and increasing awareness of the value of waste’.

Trade in hazardous waste is also expected to increase, due to the need to treat waste in specific facilities that are not available in all countries.

Despite it being illegal to ship hazardous waste from EU member states to countries which are not members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the report estimates that between 250,000 tonnes and 1.3 million tonnes of used electrical products are shipped out of the EU to West Africa and Asia every year. This figure is also reported to be growing, and highlights the needs for the EU to ‘intensify and harmonise inspection activities across the EU’ to combat illegal waste transfers.

Speaking on the release of the report, EEA Executive Director Jacqueline McGlade said: “European countries are exporting more waste than ever… The trade in non-hazardous waste can be seen as largely positive, as material is often transported to places where it can be better used.

“However, we should not lose sight of the bigger picture – in an increasingly resource-constrained world, Europe needs to dramatically reduce the amount of waste it generates in the first place.”

The report recommends that the EU focuses on building new technologies and business models that generate less waste, or less hazardous waste and should put more efforts into waste prevention in order to become more resource-efficient, as part of the EU 2020 growth strategy.

Read ‘Movements of waste across the EU's internal and external borders’.