Waste and recycling

26 October 2023, 10.00 am – 12.30 pm Online

EMAS Helpdesk in collaboration with the Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform invites you to join us on October 26th at 10 am for the online webinar "People: your best resource in environmental management. How to involve them?"

Each year, hospitals in the Netherlands generate about 1.3 million kilograms of plastic waste from polypropylene wrapping paper on surgical instruments. Researchers have suggested that this waste could be turned into new medical devices. They recovered surgical wrapping paper from the operating theatre at a hospital in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The waste was melted into solid blocks, granulated and injection moulded into new medical products. Click here to read more

The Commission delivers on circular economy and zero pollution ambitions by proposing stronger rules on waste exports to protect the environment and people’s health.

On 1 October 2021, the Commission adopted the Implementing Decision laying down rules for the application of Directive (EU) 2019/904 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the calculation, verification and reporting of data on the separate collection of waste single-use plastic beverage bottles.

The regulation will address the negative consequences of POPs in waste and in material that could be recovered from it.

Pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors increasingly contaminate the world’s freshwaters. New research provides direct evidence of their transfer from aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems via the consumption of aquatic insects by terrestrial predators such as spiders, birds and bats. This exposure may have negative impacts on the physiology and population dynamics of predators, suggesting a need for improved risk-assessment guidelines and practices. Click here to read more

Corrected Link: Green Public Procurement (GPP) News Alert - July 2021 issue

In response to the global problem of marine litter and plastic pollution, which is projected to triple by 2040, the Governments of Ecuador, Germany, Ghana and Vietnam will jointly organize a Ministerial Conference on Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution, most likely on 1 Sep 2021. The objective is to adopt an ambitious Ministerial Declaration paving the way for the UNEA5 to adopt a negotiating mandate for a global plastics agreement in Feb 2022. The first pre-meeting to the Ministerial Conference on 27-28 May with more 500 participants including governments, NGO’s, industry showed broad support for launching the negotiations for a legally binding global agreement for plastics through a circular economy/life cycle approach. DG ENV is now working with the EEAS to prepare a targeted outreach in run up to UNEA 5.2. with the primary focus on like-minded (signatories to New York declaration) and open-minded countries (e.g. Indonesia, India, Malaysia, South Africa).

Marine plastic pollution has been found in the remote Antarctic peninsula and Southern Ocean since the 1980s, but microplastic pollution in this region is less well understood. To find out more about this emerging environmental hazard, scientists have analysed the deep-sea sediments of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean regions for the presence of microplastics.

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The circular economy (CE) aims to reduce the use of virgin materials by reusing materials as much as possible. This study examines which types of European households adopt circular consumption habits, how this is reflected in their material footprint and how rebound effects (when environmental actions result in financial savings or require consumer investments) may affect the overall impact.

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Water bodies absorb the nitrogen released by human activity and must, therefore, be protected against nutrient overloading (or eutrophication), which can cause significant environmental damage. Constructed wetlands (CWs) are widely used as an eco-friendly treatment method for this; however, the efficacy of CWs may be affected by the presence of emerging contaminants in wastewater. This study explores how nano-sized particles of polystyrene plastic (nanoplastics) affect nitrogen removal (denitrification¹) in CWs.

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The accumulation of plastics in the marine environment is an issue of great concern, with bottom-feeding species eating plastic microparticles (MPs) they find in the sediment of their habitats. To understand what influences the entry of MPs into the marine food web, a study took samples from the vicinity of two Croatian islands, exploring the impact of MPs on a marine species: the sea cucumber.

Demand for portable energy storage is growing with rising demand for products such as electric cars. Supercapacitors supply a higher power density and longer cycle life than a conventional battery but require porous carbon in their manufacture. A new study presents a method to create large amounts of carbon — suitable for supercapacitor manufacture — from an abundant, low-cost source: used coffee grounds.

Approximately 88 megatonnes (Mt) of food are wasted every year in the European Union, causing 186 metric tons (Mt) carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) — a universal measure for all greenhouse gases. The impact of food waste on the climate, acidification and eutrophication is around 15–16% of the environmental impact of the entire food chain. In developed countries, food waste is high at the point of consumption— so significantly reducing food losses would require a food-waste reduction in households and the food-services sector.

Issue 540