NEWS SEARCH RESULTS ( 9 - 12 from 59 )

Major Cities sign European Circular Cities Declaration and invite peers to join them

1 October 2020

Major European cities including Tirana (Albania); Ghent, Leuven and Mechelen (Belgium); Prague (Czechia); Copenhagen, Høje-Taastrup and Roskilde (Denmark); Helsinki, Lappeenranta, Oulu, Tampere and Turku (Finland); Grenoble (France); Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany); Budapest (Hungary); Florence and Prato (Italy); Wiltz (Luxembourg); Guimarães (Portugal); Bergen and Oslo (Norway); Ljubljana and Maribor (Slovenia); Seville (Spain), and Eskilstuna, Malmö and Umeå (Sweden) have joined forces to support and act on the transition to a circular economy and signed the European Circular Cities Declaration. The Declaration was launched at the 9th European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns – Mannheim2020, at the policy panel Circular Economy in Cities.

Signatories recognise the need of accelerating the transition from a linear to a circular economy in Europe, and are committed to act as ambassadors and champion a circular economy that leads to a resource-efficient, low-carbon and socially responsible society, in which resource consumption is decoupled from economic growth.

The Declaration has been launched by Anni Sinnemäki, Helsinki’s Deputy Mayor for Urban Environment. “Helsinki is ready and willing to promote circular economy. Our declaration includes crucial fields for cities, such as construction work. Cooperation is essential in leading the transition: Helsinki is willing to learn more from other cities and also to share our own experiences,” said Deputy Mayor Sinnemäki. Launching signatories invite cities and regions from across Europe to join them in signing the Declaration.

Cities and regions are cradles of innovation and socio-economic transformation with an enormous potential to lead the transition to a circular economy. Local and regional governments manage a number of key sectors in urban areas. As such, they are ideally placed to foster a circular economy and lead the way towards a more sustainable, resilient future. The European Circular Cities Declaration provides a common, shared vision of a circular city that helps ensure cities act as a joined force on the road to circularity.

The Declaration has been developed by a broad group of European organisations committed to enabling the transition to a circular economy at the local level, including ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, Circular Flanders, CSCP, ECERA, the European Investment Bank (EIB), Ellen McArthur Foundation, Eurocities, LWARB, UN Environment Programme and the WCYCLE Institute.

For more information about the Declaration and to learn how to sign, visit: www.circularcitiesdeclaration.eu

European recycling industry welcomes EU climate plans

22 September 2020

In her recent State of the Union address, EU president Ursula von der Leyen called for a "European renovation wave" that would make the EU a "leader in the circular economy". To that end, 37% of NextGenerationEU funding will be spent on Green Deal objectives; 30% of that funding will be raised through green bonds. Von der Leyen further noted that the European Commission will propose an emission reduction target of 55% by 2030, having previously set a reduction target of 40%.

The European recycling industry has reacted positively to these plans, while demanding more specific policies. The European Waste Management Association (FEAD) notes that its members – private waste management companies - are ready to take on the challenge and welcomes the more ambitious EU climate plans. At the same time, FEAD president Peter Kurth makes clear that concrete actions are necessary "to ensure a very much needed shock on demand for recyclates: mandatory recycled content rules in certain key products, while keeping positive waste export rules to allow the offer in recyclates to meet the demand where it is, ensuring proper functioning of secondary raw materials markets."

The European Recycling Industries Confederation (EuRIC) shares a similar view. EuRIC supports the measures announced by Von der Leyen, noting that the use of secondary raw materials in manufacturing needs to be incentivised to speed up the circular transition and meet the targets of the European Green Deal. Additionally, EuRIC president Cinzia Vezzosi argues that "time has come to speed the adaptation of the EU’s regulatory framework to create a well-functioning market for secondary materials and streamline requirements hampering circular value chains, keeping in mind the global nature of commodity markets which are key to balance supply and demand." Finally, Vezzosi calls for measures ensuring that products which cannot be recycled at the end of their lifecycle do not find their way to the European internal market.

 

Join the 'Plastic, construction and bio-waste - too valuable to waste' session at Mannheim2020

2 September 2020

Cities around Europe are piloting and implementing solutions to become more circular. Plastic, construction and bio-waste are three of the waste streams cities are seeking to reduce or reuse due to their environmental impact and socio-economic value. Which levers do cities have to effectively close these materials loops?

This will be the focus of the session Plastic, construction and bio-waste - too valuable to waste at the 9th European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns - Mannheim2020 (30 Sept - 2 Oct), in which the PlastiCircle approach will also be presented and discussed. In this session, we will hear the experience of three cities that have got down to the job of moving from a linear to a circular economy regarding these three waste streams. What have they done? What did they learn? Can their solutions be replicated elsewhere? Moderated by Ashima Sukhdev, Government & Cities Programme Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the audience will also be invited to challenge speakers.

To take part in the session (Friday October 2, 9.30 - 11.00), register to the Conference (no fees) here

PlastiCircle improves the quality of recycled plastic

17 July 2020

Cities that have used the PlastiCircle approach to manage plastic waste have not only recycled more, but also better. In the Spanish city of Valencia, the first one to implement the pilot in 2019, the recycled plastic sorted by neighbours in the pilot phase was of superior quality than regular material.

In the first half of the project, PlastiCircle achieved its main objective of increasing efficiency and recovery in the sorting stage of the process. Picvisa, the partner responsible for the sorting process, worked on improving the segmentation algorithms to be able to better detect objects on the conveyor belts. As a result, improvements were made to the analysis of the NIR hyperspectral information to improve the classification of material, especially regarding the identification of multilayer materials.

Besides, the sorting process in Valencia resulted in more recycled plastic and less material thrown to landfills, as explained by Luís Segui, managing director of Picvisa. The project also demonstrated the recovery of the polythene (PE) film and the importance of also treating PET Trays as an important material to be detected and separated.

The consortium is confident that the improvements developed within PlastiCircle will be soon available for the market of recycled plastic. The next aims are to improve the purity of PE film to achieve the objective of keeping precision in sorting higher than 95 percent (it is currently 91 percent) and keeping the PE film and polypropylene (PP) film with rejects lower than 5 percent.

The PlastiCircle approach, aimed at improving plastic packaging from waste to valuable resources, is divided into four phases: collecting, transport, sorting, and reprocessing. The third and final pilot was launched on 1 July 2020 in the city of Alba Iulia, Romania, and will run until 30 September 2020. You can find more information about the pilots here