Recycling Europe has criticized a European Commission draft list that would bar EU recyclers from exporting ferrous and non-ferrous metal waste to major non-OECD markets in Asia, calling the underlying risk assessment technically flawed.

The EU Commission is not tightening the existing requirements for recycling efficiency and the recovery of materials from used batteries for the time being.

A draft EU list of non-OECD countries could restrict exports of recycled ferrous and non-ferrous metals to several Asian markets.

The so-called rare earths are playing an important role in more and more applications. However, Germa-ny has no deposits of its own and is dependent on imports.

Industry associations are calling for risk-based EU criteria for recycled building materials and warn of duplicate checks and additional bureaucracy.

Recycling Europe welcomes the EU decision not to pursue proposed restrictions on aluminium scrap exports and calls for further dialogue.

With the new Ecodesign Regulation, the European Union wants to make sustainable products the standard.

For decades, the EU has been pursuing the goal of reducing packaging waste and significantly increasing the recycling of plastics. But how effective are these political requirements really?

Bio-based materials are considered the key to a more climate-friendly economy, but policy-makers still view them in linear value creation models.

The British government wants to fundamentally reposition its steel industry with a clear focus on decarbonisation and the circular economy. At the heart of the UK Steel Strategy is a raw ma-terial that has often been underestimated in the past: steel scrap.

The European Commission has announced the Circular Economy Act for the autumn. Through a series of publications, the law is getting clearer contours.

Many circular economy technologies and business models have passed the pilot phase, but their scaling often fails due to regulatory fragmentation, weak markets for secondary raw materials and a lack of data interoperability.

Technically, there are many prerequisites for a European circular economy. Regulation, demand and infrastructure are slowing down the plan to scale these processes.

Sweden could need to manage up to 150,000 tonnes of end-of-life solar panels annually by around 2060.

Waste electrical and electronic equipment has considerable potential for the recovery of critical raw materials. However, there are still considerable gaps between technical feasibility and industrial implementation.