Michael Brunn

In Mexico, waste, including industrial waste, is still frequently disposed of in landfill sites.

Today, the Commission proposes a comprehensive set of actions to ensure the EU's access to a secure, diversified, affordable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials.

Even at the beginning of the new year, there is uncertainty among plastics recyclers. Al-most all problems were carried over from the old year, as can be seen from the market report of the plastics division of the BIR. No one can say exactly where the journey will take us at the moment. However, there is cautious optimism that 2023 could be a better year again.

The EU taxonomy is intended to ensure that more investment is made in sustainable pro-jects in the future. This also includes buildings. The German Sustainable Building Coun-cil, together with sister societies from Spain, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands, examined a total of 38 buildings on the basis of the taxonomy criteria. The result: The real estate industry is not yet ready.

With the report "Pathways to circular plastics in Europe: Good examples from countries, businesses and citizens", the European Topic Centre on Circular Economy and Resource Use (ETC CE) aims to show how the handling of plastics and plastic waste can be funda-mentally changed.

The European Commission is planning to amend the Packaging Ordinance. The associations of the PPK industry welcome the planned changes in principle. In a position paper, however, they make it clear which parts they want to see changed: all those that affect their industry.

The European targets for packaging recycling for 2025 and 2030 are ambitious. And due to the change in the calculation procedure, the odds are going down rather than up. The study "Mixed Waste Sorting to meet the EU's Circular Economy Objectives", which Eunomia prepared on behalf of Reloop and Zero Waste Europe, aims to show the potential of mixed waste to achieve the quotas.

In its position paper "Boosting steel scrap recycling in the EU. Debunking myths & setting a clear pathway to decarbonise steel through recycling", the industry associations Euric, BDSV, bvse and VDM emphasise the importance of steel recycling for climate targets and make clear what framework conditions need to be created.

Novelis and its partners at the research and development laboratory Net Zero Lab Valais, successfully completed the first year of operations, launching key energy projects aimed at enabling scope 1 and 2 carbon-neutral production at Novelis´ Sierre plant in Switzerland.

With its report "Increasing Recycling Rates with EPR Policy", The Recycling Partnership aims to show that Extended Producer Responsibility can successfully increase recycling rates for packaging. In addition, the expected significant effects of extended producer responsibility in the USA will be presented.