More ‘ambitious’ waste policies in Europe could help create 750,000 new jobs by 2025 and reduce environmental impacts, a new report from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) has claimed.

‘Advancing Resource Efficiency in Europe’ – written by Dr Jane Beasley of Beasley Associates Ltd and Ray Georgeson of Ray Georgeson Resources Ltd – argues that the EU could create 860,000 new jobs and prevent the equivalent of around 415 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being produced by 2030, if it adopts ‘ambitious new policies and targets for the prevention and recycling of waste’ as part of its upcoming Waste Targets Review.

These could be implemented across member states through a range of fiscal levers, including:

• tax incentives for recycled or re-used goods;
• levies on disposed products;
• variable-charging schemes for households (such as Pay As You Throw); and
• reinforced Extended Producer Responsibility.

Report details

The report looks at three 'key' policy areas that have 'high impact on the daily life of European citizens', are 'clearly identifiable' and have 'reasonable data from which it is possible to make some assessment of potential impacts in Europe'.

These areas are: food waste reduction, textile reuse, and furniture reuse.

Food waste prevention

Based on 'publicly available data', the report outlines that if the EC were to set a ‘modest’ food waste prevention target of 30 per cent by 2025 (rising to 40 per cent in 2030), the EU could:

• prevent 10.5 million tonnes (Mt) of waste arising (rising to 14.1 Mt in 2030);
• avoid 42.1 Mt of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) (rising to 56.2 Mt);
• save householders €36.5 billion, rising to €49.1 billion (£30 billion rising to £40.5bn)); and
• avoid using 28,350 square feet of land (rising to 38,070 sq feet in 2030)

However, under an ‘ambitious’ scenario – a 50 per cent reduction target by 2025, rising to 60 per cent in 2030 – the EU could reap more benefits, saving:

• 17.6 Mt of food waste arising by 2025 (rising to 21.1 Mt);
• 70.2 Mt of GHGs (rising to 84.3 Mt);
• €61.2 billion for householders, rising to €73.4 billion (£50.4 billion rising to £60.5bn)); and
• 47,520 square feet of land (rising to 56,970).

Textile reuse

For textiles, there would also be large savings to be had, with an ‘ambitious’ scenario of 30 per cent reuse by 2025 saving between 13.92 and 22.27 Mt of GHGs and between 6 million litres and 26 million litres of water.

If a 35 per cent reuse target were set for 2030, these figures would rise to between 16.24 Mt and 25.98 Mt of GHGs and 12.18 and 52.2 million litres of water.

This compares to 6.96 -11.13 Mt and 9.38-14.85 Mt under a ‘modest’ scenario of 15 and 20 per cent targets.

Furniture reuse

For furniture reuse, the authors suggest that an ambitious 40 per cent reuse target for 2025 could save four million tonnes of GHGs, rising to 4.7 Mt if a 45 per cent reuse target was set for 2030.

This would also see an additional 269,053 jobs created by 2030.

Recycling targets

Looking to municipal solid waste recycling targets, the report suggests that an ‘ambitious’ recycling target of 70 per cent by 2030 could save in excess of 303 Mt of GHGs, approximately 40 per cent of the European car fleet, reducing costs by more than €12 billon (£9.8 billion).

Further, this target coupled with ‘intense reuse’ could create over half a million jobs by 2030, the equivalent of taking one in six of Europe’s currently unemployed youth back into work.

This compares to a monetary saving of between €2.5 billion (£2.05 bn) and €9.9 (£8.1) billion for a ‘modest’ 55-60 per cent recycling rate.

The authors also suggest that an ambitious scenario could include incineration and landfill bans for all untreated biodegradable municipal waste, and separate collection of biowaste from households.

Report recommendations

As such, the report outlines several steps that can be taken to help deliver better resource efficiency throughout the EU:

• striving for ‘the best ambition possible’ to deliver long-term benefits for both European civil society and its industry;
• establishing EU-level standards for reporting and baselines for calculation;
• developing an EU-level proposal that ‘reflects the resource efficiency agenda and, while taking into account the variety of situations across member states, nevertheless decides on targets, measures and minimum standards in line with the established waste hierarchy and the commitments of the Resources Efficiency Roadmap’;
• developing EU-level material recover targets ‘to balance the energy recovery targets that exist as part of the renewable energy agenda’;
• constraining overall disposal and energy recovery options (such as landfill and incineration bans all biodegradable waste), and setting specific targets on materials ‘according to what best suits each waste stream’;
• using resource efficiency indicators (such as carbon reduction, land use, material use, and water use) to ‘support any policy option’ and for the EC to refer to them in 'impact assessments together with appropriate economic indicators'; and
• encouraging member states to ‘mobilise the economic and fiscal instruments that best suit them and combine them in appropriate manners in line with the waste hierarchy, e.g. not taxing one disposal option that would benefit another option lower in the hierarchy’.

‘Massive potential for advancing resource efficiency in Europe’

Speaking of the report findings, Piotr Barczak, the EEB’s Waste Policy Officer, commented: “This report underlines the massive potential for advancing resource efficiency in Europe. If the EU is ambitious, it could help create work for one in every six currently unemployed, young Europeans. It underlines that good environmental policies create jobs - and lots of them.”

The EEB’s Senior Policy Officer for Waste and Products, Stéphane Arditi, added: “Landfill bans alone will be insufficient if we want to create a resource-efficient Europe. We need clear direction towards options further up the waste hierarchy that also move away from incineration.”

Read the ‘Advancing Resource Efficiency in Europe’ report.