EEB Boost Critical Material Recycling & Reuse in EU Through Ecodesign Directive

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) has called on the EU to recover, reuse and recycle more critical materials through a better implementation of the Ecodesign Directive. In a report, Delivering Resource Efficient Products, the organisation said that the EU should make better use of one of the most powerful tools at its disposal if it wants to reduce resource consumption in Europe and bring about a circular economy. According to the EEB, the Ecodesign Directive is already delivering substantial energy savings and is allowing consumers to make considerable savings on their energy bills each year. The report argued that setting requirements on resource use would be politically timely and provide further benefits to both businesses and consumers. However, it added that many of the products covered under the Ecodesign Directive contain critical raw materials which Europe largely imports. Recovering, re-using and recycling these metals, as well as increasing the EU’s resource productivity, could create two million new jobs by 2030 [3], encourage innovation, and mitigate the adverse impact that future price rises for these virgin materials will have on European industry. “The Commission has said it will issue a proposal on the circular economy by the end of the year which addresses product design. This report lays the path for doing just that. Ecodesign could push producers to design their products so that are more easily repairable, longer-lasting and more recyclable. This would help cut waste, create millions of new jobs across the EU and reduce the impact our resource consumption has on the environment,” saidCarsten Wachholz, the European Environmental Bureau’s policy officer for EU Product Policy, said: The EEB noted that to date, the EU has developed several strategies to tackle unsustainable levels of resource consumption but has so far not acted on them. The EEB’s report finds that the Ecodesign Directive is well-suited to achieve this objective. The directive already sets requirements on energy use for electrical and electronic products in order to cut their impact on the environment, and it could do so for resource use too. The organisation also noted that prolonging the lifetime of a product, compared to replacing it early, can deliver significant resource savings. The report found that carrying out a range of simple, already available design options to extend the lifetime of laptops, printers and washing machines in the EU could lead to savings in greenhouse emissions of over 1 million tonnes per year, which is the equivalent of taking 477,000 cars off the road for one year. It also highlighted three ways the Ecodesign Directive could deliver more resource-efficient products: Identifying design requirements that support better repairability and durability of products Ensuring that selected materials in products are managed carefully from production to end-of-life, including options to use high shares of recycled content and support their high-quality recyclability Removing problematic or hazardous substances undermining the potential for re-using components or material from products. The report argued that getting producers to provide information about the materials contained in a product, which would help repair, disassembly and adequate treatment at the end-of-life stage, would drive the development of a circular economy in Europe. The information could be provided along with the product when it is purchased, or be easily accessible in a standardised format to help downstream users like repair services, re-use centres or recycling companies. “Europe is import-dependent for many of the critical materials that are used in consumer products. So it makes sense to find ways to reduce the use of these materials and keep them in circulation for as long as possible. The Ecodesign Directive, coupled with strong waste management policies, can help deliver that and make Europe more resource-efficient,” concluded Wachholz. Read More UK Government Urged to Increase Recycling & Material Security with Office for Resource Management A paper calling for the formation of a central Office for Resource Management in the UK is to be presented to parliament today by a group of major organisations in conjunction with the All Party Sustainable Resource Group. Remondis UK Boss Calls on Waste Industry to Pull Together With an election on the horizon in the UK, it has never been more important for the waste industry to work together or risk falling risk behind the rest of Europe, explains Marcus Bauer, managing director of Remondis UK... Belgrade Conference Ahead of Huge Recycling & Waste to Energy PPP The City of Belgrade, Serbia has invited interested companies to attend a conference where it will present its waste treatment and disposal services project.