Michael Brunn

The steel industry is one of the world's largest industrial emitters of greenhouse gases. In addition to new production processes and a climate-friendly energy supply, the circular economy in particular offers great opportunities for reducing emissions. The study "Circular Economy can substantially reduce EU steel supply chain emissions: A quality-focused circularity assessment" by Dutch and Spanish scientists shows that material efficiency, longer product lifespans and high-quality recycling could significantly reduce the demand for steel in Europe and massively increase the share of secondary steel. It is not only the amount of available scrap that is decisive, but above all its quality. The study was published in "Resources, Conservation & Recycling".

Climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution form an interconnected "triple planetary crisis." The report "Moving from interconnected crises to systemic solutions" by Ecologic Institute on behalf of the German Environment Agency shows why this requires a change of perspective for the circular and waste management industry: away from pure waste management and towards the active control of material flows and resource use.

As the study "High voltage selective fragmentation on Swedish mineral fraction of incineration bottom ash (MIBA)" by scientists from Sweden and Switzerland shows, high-voltage fragmenta-tion opens up new perspectives for the recovery of metals from waste incineration ash. Addi-tional metal contents of up to 2.2 percent could be tapped, while at the same time new, more homogeneous material flows were created. However, regulatory limits and material challenges have so far slowed down industrial implementation. The study was published in "Waste Ma-nagement".

The European glass recycling chain is considered one of the most developed material cycles in the pack-aging sector. Container glass can be recycled almost indefinitely in a closed cycle without any significant loss of quality. However, for this to happen, glass fragments must be reliably recognized as glass in the processing plants and not incorrectly discharged as impurities. The "Study on the glass transmittance of opaque glass packaging", which Stazione Sperimentale del Vetro carried out on behalf of FEVE, analyzes the light transmission at which dark, thick-walled glass is no longer reliably identified as glass by optical sorting systems in European glass breakage processing plants.

Rising raw material prices, geopolitical uncertainties and growing ESG pressure are changing the rules of the waste management industry. Landfills are increasingly in focus - not only as a cost factor and liability risk, but also as a potential raw material storage. In the study "Moving waste storage towards a circular economy: barriers and opportunities", British scientists have developed the ASPIRE concept, an approach that uses industrial and mineral waste in a targeted manner for later value creation. The study was published in the "Journal of Environmental Management".

Climate impacts not only affect Europe directly, but also have an impact in complex chain reactions via global supply chains, markets and political upheavals. The study "Critical intervention points for European adaptation to cascading climate change impacts" by European scientists shows at which systemic nodes these risks are concentrated. The study was published in "Nature".

The necessity of the transformation to a circular economy is hardly questioned anymore. Nevertheless, there is no practical implementation. This applies in particular to the plastics value chain. The problem is that climate neutrality by 2045 requires a completely new set-up of the value chain. However, the necessary investments can hardly be made by the players. In particular, the competitiveness of plastics recyclers is threatened. For this reason, the position paper "Options for a Functional Market for Plastic Recyclates" by the Wuppertal Institute on behalf of the German Federal Environmental Foundation examined the framework conditions required for a sustainable market for plastic recyclates.

The circular economy is considered the key to resource and climate protection. But it has long been an important employment factor. A global survey of "Employment in the Circular Economy" by Circle Economy, the World Bank Group, the International Labour Organization and Page shows that up to 142 million people worldwide work in circular activities.

According to the study "Transforming textile waste into materials using fungi", textile waste streams could no longer be seen primarily as a disposal problem, but as a raw ma-terial basis for new composites. Researchers at the University of Vienna and the Estonian University of Life Sciences have shown that fungal mycelia can combine used clothing to form resilient laminate structures whose mechanical properties are significantly higher than previous mycelium materials. The study was published in "Resources, Conservation & Recycling".

The discussion paper "A post-2030 climate policy framework fit for reaching the EU climate targets" by the German Environment Agency shows that the European climate protection architecture after 2030 must be made much more precise, coherent and resilient in order to actually achieve the goal of climate neutrality by 2050.