The EU aims to secure access to strategically important secondary raw materials. Thereby, it strengthens its industrial competitiveness through export restrictions.

According to FEAD, battery fires caused an estimated €2.66 billion in damage in the EU waste sector in 2025, and incidents are rising.

Indian recyclers have urged the EU to reconsider its Waste Shipment Regulation, which excludes India from a provisional list of approved importers.

Trade barriers are increasingly driven by supply chain security concerns rather than economic or environmental reasons, according to BIR.

Demand for recovered raw materials from electronics is rising. However, inconsistent waste classifications continue to complicate international trade in recycled materials.

With the EU ETS2, the European Union is extending emissions trading to fuels for buildings and road transport for the first time.

Engineering plastics such as polyamides and polyurethanes pose special challenges for the circular econ-omy because complex material flows meet high quality requirements of downstream applications.

Despite their low market share to date, bio-based plastics are facing a strategic upgrade in the European packaging market.

Speira has commissioned a further new aluminium recycling furnace in Töging, completing four furnace projects at two sites on schedule.

ETH Zurich researchers have developed a patented plastic waste upcycling process that turns polyolefins into a high-performance adhesive.

Matiq has equipped its Sheffield materials recovery facility with 14 Tomra Autosort units and PolyPerception analysers for real-time visibility.

The public sector steers huge financial flows with its budgets, but environmental and resource effects have so far played only a minor role.