Waste to Wealth (W2W): The Need for a Social Enterprise Approach to Turn Waste Into Wealth

David Luigi Fuschi, Aiireza Nazarian, and Pantea Foroudi

Background

Waste: a dramatic world crisis

What is waste management? It is the handling of waste, or in other words the by-products, that originate from human activities, which might still contain residues of the manufactured useful products (McDougall et al., 2008) and, as such, requires careful processing and activities that manage these materials before disposal. According to McDougall et al. (2008), although societies are still are concerned with health and safety in regards to waste, in recent years there has been a realisation that being only concerned with this is not enough and that waste management must also be sustainable. They further argue that sustainable waste management must have some particular characteristics, including being affordable economically socially acceptable and effective environmentally.

Everyday vast quantities of valuable resources are wasted and what is worse is that this also has a negative environmental impact on climate, health and the economy (in terms of sustainability). As a first point, let us consider food - something we all need. However, according to the UN, the earth’s population is forecasted to reach a staggering 9.8 billion in 2050 and by 2100 should be 11.2 billion (UN, 2017). This means that at least 70% more food will have to be produced compared to now (FAO, 2009. However, a 2013 IMechE study estimated that between 30% and 50% of all food produced on the planet (1.2-2 billion tons) is wasted without being consumed (IMechE, 2013). These values are confirmed by an FAO report “Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste” (FAO, 2017a) and by “Food Loss and Waste and Food Value Chains - Learning Guide” (Ghamrawy, 2019). This means that it will be increasingly difficult to feed everyone.

Even if this was not enough of a challenge, food poverty is on the rise, as is apparent from the title of a January 2019 report from the Environmental Audit Committee entitled “Sustainable Development Goals in the UK follow-up: Hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity in the UK”. The study showed that currently the UK’s food insecurity levels are growing significantly - among children especially - and are among the worst in Europe. Furthermore, with respect to food insecurity in the UK, Purdam et al. (2016) argued that there are around 3 million individuals that are potentially at risk of malnutrition because of food insecurity. Mary Creagh MP (Furey, 2019), Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, stated that it is a “scandal” that the UK have some of the highest levels of hunger across Europe, with 20% of children under 15 forced to live in a food insecure environment. She also argued that the root cause was one hand increasing living costs and, on the other, decreasing wages, along with the implementation of universal credit and the benefit system current rolled-out. Of a similar tone is the observation of the Trussell Trust’s chief executive Emma Revie, who argued that the increasing number of food parcels provided by food banks - more than 1.3 million in 2018 - can be attributed to the “failure to address the root causes of poverty” (Bulman, 2019; Richmond-Bishop, 2018).

Food waste is just the tip of a massive iceberg; waste is affecting the environment, climate change, animal and human life, health and even the economy. The FAO report “Save Food for a Better Climate” (FAO, 2017b) clearly points out that there is close interdependence among climate change, food loss and waste generation. The same report also points to the initiatives and frameworks adopted by the international community and how these are being translated into national priorities and targets.

The report highlights enabling factors to be addressed as part of a collective effort to reduce waste and food loss, as well as ways to simultaneously address climate change in alignment with the objectives of the sustainable development agenda.

Elaborated from World Bank (2018a).

Based on World Bank data from 2016, cities on their own produced 2.01 billion tonnes of solid waste; however, urbanisation along with fast growth in population may cause an increase of 70% or even more in waste, rising to approximately around 3.40 billion tonnes in 2050 (World Bank, 2019). Additionally, the more severely affected will be developing countries’ urban poor residents as they will have to face and possibly be severely impacted by unsustainable waste management systems, considering the fact that according to the World Bank report (2019) over 90% of waste disposed in low-income countries is often either dumped in illegal/unreg- ulated dumps or even burned in an open-air areas mostly populated by vulnerable residents.

At the same time, waste collection is so expensive that it can somehow be fully achieved mostly in high-income countries only (World Bank, 2018a). The rich world has also used these developing countries as their “(remote) landfill”, exporting all kind of waste (including toxic ones), often claiming the Basel Convention allows the exporting of waste to third world countries, while ignoring that the latter countries need to agree and be able to deal with it.

China used to be the main recipient of the rich world’s waste, using it as a source of cheap resources - this was a main driver of the recycling industry - but now that it has blocked such practices the system is in crisis and other countries have become the rich world’s “(remote) land-field” (Hook et al., 2018). The serious environmental, safety and health consequences of such practices in countries like Malaysia have pushed their governments to start refusing the rich world’s waste (BBC, 2019a; Denyer, 2019).

It is historically known that a poor waste management system can potentially offer a perfect place for dangerous disease vectors. It is also known that waste can even promote urban violence and certainly contributes a platform for dramatic changes in global climate by generating methane gas. Toxic waste contaminates water resources and certain recycling practices - such as burning wires to extract the copper - create toxic fumes that pollute the air and cause serious health problems. Therefore, on 11 May 2019 in Geneva at the convention on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemical backed by the UN, a consensus on plastic waste regulations was reached, aimed not only at protecting the environment but also human health from the harmful effects of hazardous chemicals and waste (Holden, 2019; UN, 2019).

From the following pie chart is possible to see that most of the global waste consists mostly of food and green waste. According to World Bank (2018a), around 50% - or possibly more - of organic waste is generated in all regions except for North America, Europe and Central Asia, which tend to produce more dry waste in higher proportions.

Waste composition can be differentiated, just like its collection, based on income levels; this also reflects consumption patterns and, unfortunately, those items that could be potentially recycled only account for approximately 20% of the waste produced in countries with low-incomes (World Bank, 2018a).

Elaborated from World Bank (2018a).

Presently, to build liveable and sustainable cities, it is essential to implement proper waste management, however, this remains a challenge in developing countries and cities, though not only there. Running effective waste management processes often accounts for 20% to 50% of municipal budgets - it is expensive and to be socially supported, sustainable and efficient, it requires integrated systems (World Bank, 2018a).

According to Winterich et al. (2019), the recycling process is substantially equivalent to producing new materials or objects from wastes. In another words, recycling represents an alternative method as compared to conventional or traditional waste disposal, and allows for saving resources and lowering greenhouse gas emissions (Arduin et al., 2019; Blose et al., 2020). Composting food, garden waste or any other form of biodegradable waste to something new that be reused is also defined as recycling.

Recycling is often flaunted as the only solution, forgetting that designing products and packaging with the end-of-life aspect in mind is even better, as the best way to recycle waste is not to create it. Already back in 2003, the paramount relevance of product End-of- Life Management (Toffel, 2003) was apparent. In 2004 the US Environmental Protection Agency established the national electronics product stewardship initiative (NEPSI) along with a set of guidelines focusing on sustainability for e-waste collection and recycling system with cost effectiveness (at least at a basic level). The introduction of environmentally sound operational strategies was clearly in response to societal concerns about products’ end-of-life management (Caudill and Dickinson, 2004).

However, according to Needhidasan et al. (2014), ten years later the portion of USA collected e-waste for recycling, which was transported to some developing countries mainly in Asia or West Africa in order to be recycled in the informal sectors, accounted for a staggering 50-70%. Unfortunately, e-waste is considered one of the most the most hazardous, dangerous and fastest growing types of waste in both emerging and developed regions (Mendez-Fajardo et al., 2020). Given the nature of materials that can be recuperated (copper, silver, gold, lead, etc.), according to Arduin et al. (2019) and Isernia et al. (2019), urban mining is defined as the process of extracting waste parts from e-waste in order to either sell or reuse them.

In a context of a major economic tensions - the incipient trade war between USA and China (BBC, 2019b), the uncertainty brought by Brexit (OECD, 2016; The Economist, 2019), the signs of potential recession in the German economy (Skolimowski, 2019), etc. - and a growing pressure on a progressively reducing set of resources (BBC, 2012), it is necessary to find and exploit novel business models and resource usage/recycle procedures that will substantially contribute to the sustainability of the level of the present quality of life in advanced countries and possibly extend the benefits of welfare and decent living also to deprived communities and disadvantaged countries.

The need for bettering the lifestyle and welfare of the second, third and fourth world is not an option, unless there is an appetite for turmoil, instability, massive migration phenomena and - potentially - even conflict. The relationship between poverty and conflict has been extensively studied and it is clear that there is strong correlation between the two.

Since 1990, at least 18 violent conflicts can be correlated to the access to natural resources as Ban Ki-Moon - former UN Secretary-General - eloquently stated in his speech on the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict:

In some cases the trigger has been the “environmental damage and the marginalization of local populations who fail to benefit economically from natural resource exploitation."

At the same time, substantial economic profit can be created by interconnecting waste management, recycling and the circular economy - which has been defined as an economic system that aims to eliminate the continual use of resources and waste generation (Cainelli et al., 2020; Schroeder et ah, 2019; van Ewijk and Stegemann, 2020), which hopefully maximises the viable life services provided by those items and materials that are embedded in products, while at the same minimising the loss of service during a period of time.

According to Markets Insiders (GlobeNewswire, 2018), Frost & Sullivan forecast that the “Global Waste Recycling Market Outlook 2017-2018” revenue in 2018 was likely to reach $282.1 billion from the $265.61 nillion in 2017. This jump does not count the plastic recycling industry, whose revenue was estimated to have grown 7.1% from 2017 and settled at $37.6 billion in 2018. As the trend of recycling grows, the market is also expected to grow to around $377 billion by 2024 from around $265 billion reported in 2017 (Wang, 2019).

Evidence of this can be seen in Veolia’s 30% revenue increase in plastics recycling compared to a 13% revenue increase in hazardous waste management. The Veolia Waste and Water Group’s revenue has moved from €12,588 million in the first half of 2018 to €13,324 million during the first half of 2019. Overall, Veolia’s plastics recycling revenue will go from €400 million to €450 million (about $470 million) in 2019 - a staggering increase from €50 million a few years ago. It is expected that it could top €1 billion by 2025 as the 5% decrease in paper prices was offset by the boost in plastic prices (Recycling Waste World, 2019).

The waste industry is broad and can be roughly divided in different segments; however, generally the clear distinction between solid and sewage/liquid waste is accepted. According to Veolia (2013), and based on the Waste Framework Directive (WFD), waste can be divided as follows.

Source: Elaborated from Veolia (2013).

Municipal waste management could be defined as the process of separating everyday items that are commonly regarded as rubbish (Morero et al., 2020). A large part of it is plastic, which can be separated, shredded and reused, provided it was originally segregated and is not contaminated (Mollnitz et al., 2020). The attitude to recycling of young American and Chinese consumers will have also an impact on the amount of municipal waste and the way it can be managed (Blose et al., 2020).

Thus, there is evidence that a careful and far-sighted management of waste can turn waste into wealth, dramatically altering the environment and the economy, as well as providing a novel and sustainable model for addressing the needs of society in terms of waste management, access to resources, modern urban poverty and social distress.

Market research and analysis

The waste industry is broad and can be roughly divided in different segments; however, generally it is accepted to clearly differentiate between solid and sewage/liquid waste.

Principal stakeholders

The primary stakeholders in waste management are the public administration and businesses, plus the local communities in terms of management and handling, on one hand, and produc- tion/reuse, on the other. The recycling industry is another relevant stakeholder but also a large beneficiary that exploits waste to create value (be this energy or recycled resources) and works by employing quite a substantial work force, although it is very difficult to acquire detailed information in this respect (probably also because of the “dirty work” stigma characterising this industry). According to the Recycling Industry Yearbook published by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI, 2018), more than 155,000 people are directly employed by US scrap processors and brokers, while more than 375,000 other jobs are indirectly supported by the sector and more than 45,000 people are full-time employed in the US electronics recycling industry.

In 2007, recycling activities contributed 757,000 jobs to the US economy, which is 0.52% of all jobs as per a report from Recycling Economic Information (REI, 2016). In the UK, the total employment of waste and biomass activities, including the supply chain, in 2013 was 146,900 people (UK-HoC, 2017).

In the EU28 states in 2015, the waste collection, treatment and disposal activities and material recovery employed 914,320 persons in total (Weghmann, 2017). According to a Eurostat analysis of sewerage, the waste management and remediation activities sector employment accounts for roughly 61%; the water collection work force 26% in the case of treatment and supply; 10% in the sewerage sector and about 3% with respect to remediation activities and other waste management services workforce (Eurostat, 2019a). Unfortunately the most recent data reported dates back to 2016.

The focus of the policymakers is moving towards the prevention of waste generation after several years in which the focus was on reduction (using energy recovery from incineration, recycling and reusing).

The introduction of charges for the use of certain products has been part of this policy; for example, from 5 October 2015, the UK imposed a rule that organisations that are considered large must charge a fee of 5p for single-use plastic bags. As a direct consequence, the seven main retailers including Asda, Marks and Spencer’s, Sainsbury, Tesco, The Co-operative Group, Waitrose and Morrisons provided their customers with around 6 billion, equivalent to

83%, fewer bags during the period of2016-2017, as compared to 2014 (DEFRA, 2019). Similarly, if a business is believed to be disposing their waste by dumping it in a landfill site, the government also charges them something that is called the Landfill Tax as an extra charge on top of normal landfill fees (GOV.uk, 2014). At the same time, the awareness of waste-related issues is driving the growth of “zero-waste”/“plastic-free” shops (BBC, 2019c).

According to a report commissioned by Veolia from Philippe Chalmin and published in 2009, every year around four billion tons of waste is produced (municipal, industrial and hazardous). Furthermore, the report points out that, taking into account the whole process from collection to recycling, the value of the global market for waste is around €300 billion (Chalmin & Gaillochet, 2009). Therefore, despite the present trend of aiming at prevention, minimisation and reuse and while disposal, energy recovery (especially if coming from incineration) and to some extent also recycling are less favoured options, it does not change the fact that there is a large base of already disposed waste.

According to the Waste Management World while on one hand it is imperative to increase the capacity to process waste and re/up-cycle materials back into products that help transform the EU into a recycling society, it is still a concern among some EU nations, including the UK, on countries’ growing dependency on exporting waste to other part of the world such as the Far East.

Such exports subtract recyclate from the local processing cycle, thus damaging the system’s economic efficiency, given the opportunity cost of the lost recyclate. Furthermore, another major concern is related to the lack of security associated with being dependent on other markets beyond the EU sphere and the concerns posed by the environmental impact of long-distance transport. Similar concerns have been expressed about recovery operations such as waste-to-energy as they also cause loss of recyclate.

According to the EU’s waste policy, the ultimate aim is to establish a circular economy where waste disposal would be the last option and materials/resources are maintained as long as possible in an economy.

Eurostat collects and provides data as well as indicators on how waste is managed. When dealing with this, the data can be aggregated at the global or country level, allowing differentiation of where waste is processed irrespective of whether this is within or outside the EU or a member state.

These indicators set to provide data in a country based on the treatment rates that waste has been produced in a given country by type of treatment. Eurostat collects and processes data on the waste management from almost all economic sectors, as well as among the waste produced by households, but, having said that, it also excludes some types of mineral waste that are produced in large quantities mainly from organisations in the mining and construction sectors. This is possibly a questionable choice, however, it is what is available that can be used; additionally the data are limited to 2014, given the issues Eurostat encounters in collecting it from the 28 national statistic offices.

The European Waste Management (EWM) project provided a very insightful study on waste management and recycling provision, covering the 2003-2004 period as baseline for comparative purposes, which gives us the opportunity to examine what has happened over a ten years timespan. In this report, a league table of compliance was prepared, and Italy was ranked first in terms of self-sufficiency for glass and plastic, second for paper/cardboard and third for wood. This should be not surprising as Italy - unlike other EU countries - lacks many raw materials.

France was second for glass, plastic and wood and third for paper/cardboard. UK was fourth for glass, paper/cardboard and wood, and fifth for plastic.

Finally, Germany was fifth for glass, forth for plastic and sixth for paper/cardboard and wood. Four years later, all these countries had reached the target of 50% recycling, however, in 2008 the ranking was rather different with Belgium (which was not in the top seven) leading, followed by the Netherlands, Germany, the UK sixth, Italy eighth and France just above the 55% target rate threshold.

When looking at the situation of recycling in 2014, Germany is the top country in terms of the quantity of recycled waste (53.4%) as well as backfilling (4.5%), energy recovery (25.6%) and incineration (5.6%), but was only sixth in terms of landfilling. Poland - which in 2008 was below the 55% target rate threshold (around 43%) and even worse in 2010 - in 2014 reached the 60%, yet with over 26% waste still being dumped in landfills. In the same year, the UK recycled 59% while sending 27.9% to landfills; France recycled 52.8%, generating energy with 15.9% (incinerating 6.9%) and sending 23.4% to landfills. Italy recycled 67.2%, generating energy with 3% (incinerating 8.6%) and sending 21.1% to landfills.

According to the Eurostat data, overall, the whole EU-28 recycled 55% of the waste domestically generated, which is 830 kg per inhabitant. Metal, paper and cardboard, and animal and vegetal wastes accounted for more than half of the recycled waste. On the other hand, mineral waste that is normally from waste treatment, glass, wood and combustion wastes accounted for a quarter of the total recycling.

Unfortunately, the recycling rates varied from 10% in Greece to around 78% in Belgium, with still a large portion of landfill waste in some EU countries, which could result in losing a large portion of resources in both materials and energy. Although at the EU-level disposal in landfills has been continuously reduced, it is still counted for around 25% of domestic waste, that is around 196 million tons per year, in 2014. This could mean every household in the EU is responsible for producing around 385 kg of waste, excluding major mineral waste, that were landfilled. More than 80% of landfilled waste is composed of household, combustion and similar wastes and sorting residues (Eurostat, n.d.a).

Increasingly, EU member states have introduced economic incentives to divert waste from landfills to recycling centres, as well as implementing some strict rules on landfill bans for those wastes that can be recycled or combusted or that are considered untreated waste. Some countries, including most of the Nordic ones, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and Sweden, are a clear example of the success of these measures, as they have been disposing less than 10% of domestically generated waste in landfills (Eurostat, n.d.a).

Incineration is defined as the situation where the waste is used as a form of fuel, mainly for the purpose of major power plants or cement kilns, along with the current treatment of waste for disposal in order to reduce the volume and/or the hazardousness of specific waste such healthcare waste. More than 80% of the EU’s incinerated waste in 2014 was household, wood and similar wastes along with sorting residues, which include refuse-derived fuels. In 2014, Nordic countries such as Finland, Denmark and Sweden reported that they had incinerated between 36% and 42% of domestically generated waste (Eurostat, n.d.a). Overall, it is possible to see that both municipal and packaging waste recycling rates have significantly increased from 2004 to 2014, with a 13% increase for municipal waste. Similarly, the recycling rates for packaging waste increased by 10% from 2005 to 2013.

In 2014, in the EU-27 and Norway, 43% of the municipal waste produced was reported to be fully recycled and around 65% of packaging waste produced was recycled in 2013 (Eurostat, n.d.a).

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, packaging waste is defined as those wastes that include containers and packaging products such plastic bags, which are assumed to be disposed in the same year that the products they contain are purchased or consumed. This has become an increasing part of municipal solid waste (MSW) and requires specific attention, not only from consumers but also from the entire retail supply chain (Agovino et al., 2020; van Velzen et al., 2019; Oliveira et al, 2019; Yildiz-Geyhan et al., 2019).

When considering municipal waste, there is a clear difference in recycling rates among European countries; for example, in 2014, these reported rates were ranged from 64% in Germany to around 1% in Serbia. At the same time, it was reported that the recycling rates were around 50% in six countries, whereas five countries reported recycling rates of less than 20%.

In 2014, it was estimated that the rate of overall recycling varied from 81% in Belgium to 41% in Malta. On the other hand, 24 countries reported a recycling rate of 55% or more in packaging waste. Therefore, this data show that there is a huge potential for improvement among these countries.

The data available for 2014 confirms the EWM initiative’s observation in 2004 that the overall recycling rate in countries with intensive waste-based energy production is highly dependent on the management of the energy-related waste types.

• • Italy was third in terms of recycling percentage of domestically generated waste, however, it was also second in incineration (but without energy recovery) and fifth in terms of landfilling.
• • The UK was sixth in terms of the recycling percentage of domestically generated waste, had the same percentage as Italy in terms of incineration without energy recovery (9%) and was second in terms of landfilling (27.9%) with growing dependency on transporting or exports in certain main products or materials, including plastic.
• • The Netherlands substantially changed its standing from the 2004 EWM study and in 2014 was second in terms of recycling percentage of domestically generated waste, has only 2% of waste incinerated without energy recuperation and was fifth in terms of energy recovery via incineration.
• • Poland also changed from the 2004 EWM study and in 2014 was fifth in terms of the recycling percentage of domestically generated waste, third in terms of backfilling, had only 1% of incinerated waste with no energy recuperated and 7% of incineration with energy recuperation. However, it was third in terms of landfilling, at 26.4%.

The most recent data available for all these countries are those of 2016 so we will consider 2004, 2006, 2014 and 2016, so as to provide both a comparison and a trend that could further deepen the analysis originally carried out by the EWM project that ended in 2006.

How much material is being collected?

The following table provides a view on the generation of waste by waste category - i.e. hazardous and non-hazardous (Eurostat, 2019b). The first thing that is apparent from these data is that these four countries alone account for just over 30% of the entire EU-28 waste generation and has been - on average - just above 26%, growing steadily since 2004. The quantity of production as well as recycling among countries changed over time, yet on average, these four countries account for almost a third of all waste generation in the EU-28 (Eurostat, 2019b).

If we look at the part of waste that is more suitable for recycling, these same countries - on average in this period - accounted for over a third of all materials as per the following tables.

If we examine the recycling, in 2014 and 2016 (although for 2016 the data available are only Eurostat estimates), these same countries have performed as follows:

Source: Based on Eurostat - Generation of waste by waste category, hazardousness and NACE Rev. 2 activity - Code: env_wasgen; Last update: 13/06/2019.

Source: Based on Eurostat - Generation of waste by waste category, hazardousness and NACE Rev. 2 activity - Code: env_wasgen; Last update: 13/06/2019.

The data show a slight increase in recycling as well as in landfilling, which means that, despite an increase in recycling, what was achieved was not yet able to significantly reduce the amount of waste produced.

Overall, in terms of recycling, these countries accounted for over 40% of the total (although other countries were progressing and doing better at recycling). Incineration with energy recovery still accounted for a much smaller fraction than incineration without energy recovery, which points to a lost opportunity.

At the same time, incineration in Italy and the UK accounted for almost a fifth of the entire waste processing, almost double of what was recycled (Eurostat, 2019b). Therefore, it is crucial to consider the recycling collected from the packaging waste flow to understand the compliance with the quantitative recovery and recycling targets.

Source: Based on Eurostat — Management of waste by waste management operations and type of material - Sankey diagram data — Code: env_wassd; Last update: 01/03/2019.

The Eurostat definition and data collection approach in relation to waste are based on the European Parliament and Council Directive 94/62/EC dated 20/12/1994 on packaging and packaging waste, as last amended. Therefore, in this context, “packaging” means “all products made of any materials of arty nature to be used for the containment, protection, handling, delivery and presentation of goods, from raw materials to processed goods, from the producer to the user or the consumer” (Eurostat, 2019h; EP, 1994, p. 3), additionally, “non-returnable” items used for the same purposes shall also be considered packaging.

Additionally, “Packaging waste” means “any packaging or packaging material covered by the definition of waste in the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC, excluding production residues” (Eurostat, 2019h; EP, 1994, p. 4).

The waste data for packaging are divided by treatment and material type in accordance with the Commission Decision 2005/270/EC dated 22/03/2005, establishing the database system formats pursuant to Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste (Eurostat, 2019h).

It is apparent that over 80% of the total recycling can be ascribed to seven countries and the four (Italy, UK, Netherlands and Poland) covered in the EWM study account for 50%. Looking at the quantity of recycling per country, we notice that, on average, the recycling is above 70% (reaching almost 80% of what is treated) and the EWM sample is above 73%.

Source: Based on Eurostat - Packaging waste by waste management operations and waste flow - Code: env_ waspac; Last update: 13/09/2019.

Reprocessing capacity

It is important to recall that recycling can be defined as a process of reprocessing the waste material, which diverts it from the waste stream, and it is not to be reused as a form of fuel. Consequently, it is possible to understand whether a country is self-sufficient or not in terms of packaging material reprocessing capacity using the Packaging Waste Directive compliance data, which was adopted in 1994 and is reviewed every ten years. The most recent review from which data are available was in 2015 and most of the published analysed data cover up to 2014, leaving the onus of analysis of more recent data on those willing to delve into the Eurostat and OECD databases. The European Organisation for Packaging and the Environment published in 2013 the “Packaging and Packaging Waste Statistics 1998-2010” as part of its monitoring mechanism to evaluate European countries’ developments in terms of packaging and packaging waste (EUROPEN, 2013). A crucial aspect to consider at this point is that municipal waste generation as well as treatment data are provided on a voluntary basis while those related to the waste generation, apart from what is considered major mineral wastes, are connected to the Waste Statistics Regulation and those concerning the recycling rate of e-waste are collected under the WEEE Directive 2012/19/EU (Eurostat, n.d.b).

From this table is apparent that there are still a large number of landfills in use, even in countries that presently lead the table in waste recycling in the EU-28 (i.e., Germany). The countries that were more closely analysed in the EWM report account altogether for just a bit more than Germany or France alone in terms of landfills and just less than Germany alone in terms of recycling and backfilling facilities.

Source: Elaborated from Eurostat Number and capacity of recovery and disposal facilities by NUTS 2 regions [env_wasfac] the countries labelled with the asterisk (*) are those originally used in the EWM study.

The EWM sample accounts for 25% of the landfill and almost 30% of the recycling facilities. If we then consider Germany, Spain and France aside the EWM sample, we can see that over 70% of both landfills and recycling facilities are in these countries, which are only a quarter of EU-28, although they represent also the largest countries in the bloc.

Besides the global target, there are also targets specifically for municipal waste that largely consists of household waste, although similar waste generated by organisations, mostly SMEs and public institutions, also collected by the municipality can be included. The EU target for municipal waste recycling is to reach 60% by 2030 from the 28.3% of 2002, 41.1% of 2012 and 46.4% of 2017 (Eurostat, 2019c).

It is worth examining the data related to waste recovery per kind of waste; we will focus on the ones that are most relevant in terms of resource recuperation as well as trade - glass, plastic, paper, metal and wood. From these tables it is possible to remark that, on average, glass is recovered for almost 80%, paper and cardboard for almost 90% and metals for over 73%, while wood and plastic are just above 66%. Despite the latter being a rather significant percentage, it shows clearly that plastic still represents a serious problem in terms of waste management and recycling. Country-wise Germany stands out as having a waste recovery rate of over 95% (as defined by Article 6(1) of Directive 94/62/EC). The situation is rather different when we consider the recycling rates for packaging waste, as defined by Article 6(1) of Directive 94/62/EC.

Overall, just less than 71% of glass, 82% of paper and cardboard, 73.3% of metal, 41% of wood and 36.5% of plastic were recycled. In this respect Germany, although still leading in the EU, reached only 60% - which is presently aligned with 2030 targets - but significantly less than the 95% it achieved in the waste recovery rate. The difference between recovery and recycle rates is particularly high for plastic, which has a 66.7% recovery and only a 36.5% recycle rate.

According to the methodological metadata provided by Eurostat, the “rate of recovery or incineration at waste incineration plants with energy recovery” is considered as the total quantity of packaging waste that has been recovered at waste incineration plants with energy recovery, divided by the total quantity of generated packaging waste (Eurostat, 2019d). Meanwhile, “recycling rate” means the total quantity of recycled packaging waste, divided by the total quantity of generated packaging waste (Eurostat, 2019e; EC, 2005, p. 2).

In the EU, only around 10% of the total waste generated is municipal waste but its management is challenging due to its heterogeneous composition, thus, its management is a good indication of the overall waste management system’s quality (Eurostat, 2019i).

Additionally, 20—50% of municipal budgets is spent on waste management (World Bank, 2019), therefore, it is essential to understand the level of recycling of municipal waste to assess not only the effectiveness of the process but - in essence - its sustainability from the perspective of reaching the 2030 objectives.

The following table shows the recycling rate of municipal waste for the EU-28, the countries used in 2004 for the EWM study plus Germany, Spain and France. The indicator helps measure the municipal waste recycled share of the total municipal waste generated,

Source: Elaborated from Eurostat Recovery rates for packaging waste [TEN00062].

Source: Elaborated from Eurostat Recycling rates for packaging waste [TEN00063].

where material recycling, composting and anaerobic digestion are included. The ratio is expressed in percent (Eurostat, 2019f).

The data show that only less than 40% is effectively recycled, composted or processed via anaerobic digestion. When comparing this with the data on the recovery/recycling of glass, metal, paper, wood and plastic, it is apparent that a large part of municipal waste either undergoes incineration or is simply forwarded to landfill.

Sourer. Elaborated from Eurostat Recycling rate of municipal waste [T2020_RT120],

Another very important aspect of waste management relates to the so called “e-waste”, which often is exported to developing countries in Asia and West Africa to be “processed” - if we can say so - in informal recycling sectors, or in other words disposed or handled with no health and safety standards applied. According to Needhidasan et al. (2014), this applies to around 50-70% of e-waste collected in the US for recycling. The data for the EU - in terms of recycling - are not much better, with only 40% of the e-waste being recycled (Eurostat, 2019g).

According to the explanation provided by Eurostat, these data are based on the collection rate and reuse and recycling rates as set out in the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. More precisely, the indicator is calculated by multiplying the two, where:

• • The “collection rate” equals the WEEE volumes collected in a specific year, divided by the average quantity of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) that has been put on the market in the previous three years.
• • The “reuse and recycling rate” is the ratio between the weight of the WEEE being re- cycled/prepared for reuse at devoted facility and the weight of all separately collected WEEE in accordance with Article 11(2) of the WEEE Directive 2012/19/EU, while taking into account the total amount of collected WEEE sent to treatment/recycling facilities (Eurostat, 2019g).

Source: Elaborated from Eurostat Recycling rate of e-waste [T2020_RT130].

How much material is being traded?

It has already been mentioned that many Western countries export their waste; actually there is a significant trade of waste and scrap material fuelling the waste trade and generating substantial return, given the monetary value of waste as can be well understood examining (Eurostat, 2018b) secondary material price indicators. The Bern Convention poses limits on what can be exported, especially if the recipient country does not have adequate facilities to process the received waste.

In the following tables the waste and scrap import/export data are reported - in terms of tons - for both OECD and non-OECD countries while highlighting the data related to Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and the UK for consistency with the other data previously reported. Data related to the USA has also been accounted for, given the fact that a large part of their waste is exported. Japan has also been considered.

We will examine first the export/import of metals waste and scrap. According to Dawes (2016), the usage of recycled materials, including metals, can save 200 million tonnes worth of CCb emissions each year in lieu of extracting or creating new ones. Metals are costly to extract and process (especially aluminium) and some are rare and thus more/less precious (platinum, gold, silver, copper, etc.). The following table shows the export of metal scrap and waste. OECD countries accounted for almost 80% in 2016 with over a 15% increase from 2004. The EWM sample countries accounted in 2016 for around 21% of the OECD and 17% of the total (that is almost as much as all non-OECD economies, which totalled a mere 20.1% in 2016).

Also in terms of imports, the OECD accounts for almost 67% of the total while the EWM sample accounted only for less than 10%.

The interesting aspect is that while the exports have been increasing by roughly 15%, the imports have been declining by almost 2% for the OECD as a whole but have increased by 0.6% for the EWM sample countries.

Paper is another very widely recycled material that can be recycled 4 to 5 times. Nowadays, recycled paper can be as white and with the same characteristics and performance as non-recycled paper, thanks to advances in the technology and processes.

Source: Elaborated from OECD. Stats Trade in Waste and Scrap Recovered from https://stats.0ecd.0rg/#.

At the same time, not only does dumping wastepaper in landfill release methane, but it takes twice as much energy to produce paper from virgin fibre compare to what it takes to use recycled paper. Additionally, it takes 2.5 tonnes of wood to make 1 tonne of virgin fibre paper and unless trees are purposely planted for this (and replaced after use), this practice contributes to climate change.

Source: Elaborated from OECD. Stats Trade in Waste and Scrap Recovered from https://stats.0ecd.0rg/#.

The OECD economies slightly reduced their exports of waste paper from 93% in 2004 to 87.5% in 2016, however, the EWM sample countries have decreased only by around 1%. Yet the OECD data for 2016 show a slight increase in exports after a period of constant decrease from 2004.

When looking at the data for paper import it is possible to note a similar trend like the one for the exports, only with OECD and non-OECD economies being very close, with OECD at 49%. The EWM sample countries account for 17.5% of the total and well over a third of the OECD share.

Source: Elaborated from OECD. Stats Trade in Waste and Scrap Recovered from https://stats.0ecd.0rg/#.

When it comes to plastic, OECD exports are well above 70% and the EWM sample countries account for 18% and 13% of the overall OECD and total exports. Remarkable is the fact that Germany in 2014 increased its 2004 exports by 240%, Italy by 229%, the UK by 311% and Poland by 635% while the Netherlands did so by a mere 127%.

Source: Elaborated from OECD. Stats Trade in Waste and Scrap Recovered from https://stats.0ecd.0rg/#.

Looking at the import data, the OECD imported only around 26% but the EWM countries accounted for 24% of this and while Germany increased from 2004 by 274%, Italy only by 120%, Netherlands by 219%, the UK by 355% and Poland by 882%. It is important to take into account that plastic reuse is widely diffused, although plastic pollution is ramping up too. The imports of plastic are mostly applicable to non-OECD economies (which are often used more as a dumping ground, as already reported). Within the OECD, the EWM countries account for almost a quarter of the OECD imports, slightly on the rise in 2016 compared to 2004.

Sourer. Elaborated from OECD. Stats Trade in Waste and Scrap Recovered from https://stats.0ecd.0rg/#.

One of the factors to account for is that plastics are more costly to produce than to recycle when oil cost is high, and when oil prices plummet, the cost of making new plastic drops too, making recycling less attractive. This is a problem has been exacerbated by the ban on waste imports applied by China (Hook et al., 2018).

Source: Elaborated from OECD. Stats Trade in Waste and Scrap Recovered from https://stats.0ecd.0rg/#.

Eurostat provides a dataset specifically focused on packaging waste categorised by waste management operations and waste flow, which is labelled as [env_waspac] and allows monitoring compliance with the quantitative recovery and recycling targets. Eurostat collects the data in accordance with the European Parliament and Council Directive 94/62/EC of 20 December 1994 on packaging and packaging waste, as last amended, while the reporting approach and details are laid down in accordance with the EU Commission Decision 2005/270/EC of 22/03/2005 pursuant to Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste (Eurostat, 2019k).

In this dataset, the data can be assessed by material and by treatment and can provide a view on plastic, wooden, paper and cardboard and metallic and glass packaging. The dataset also covers data about other packaging that would not fit into any of the previous categories (Eurostat, 2019k).

Source: Elaborated from Packaging waste by waste management operations and waste flow [env_waspac].

To keep some consistency across the data, we have selected Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and the UK in the period 2004—2017, focusing on the years for which there are data across all sources used.

(Continued)

Source: Elaborated from Packaging waste by waste management operations and waste flow [env_waspac].

From the analysis of the reported tables, it is apparent how patchy the data are, and this could be interpreted in several ways. In any case, the fact that export data are much more complete than import ones, suggests some kind of reticence especially when considering the recent scandals emerging in relation to plastic waste exports.

In 2004 the EWM project did a thorough analysis of some of the most significant resources that can be extracted from waste. The focus was mostly on glass, plastic, paper and wood while metals were not covered, probably due to the complexity of the data.

In the attempt to update these analyses with more recent data and to include metals as well, we have used Eurostat and OECD statistical data along with national (mostly UK) and industrial sources where available. Unfortunately, data is not always available and the two approaches to data collection and retrieval are rather different between them and from the approach of the EWM project.

Glass

According to Eurostat (2019b) the quantity of glass waste produced in 2004 was over 14.75 million tonnes of which the EWM sample countries contributed 31.7% or 4.67 million tonnes, with Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain being the main contributors.

In 2015, glass accounted for 19% of the overall packaging waste generated in the EU-28 (Eurostat, 2018a), but it is important to recall that there are three distinct types of glass used: clear (flint), amber (brown) and green. They all have different uses and values, especially as it is not possible to recover clear glass from the other two. According to Article 6(1) of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive, the key targets were that the minimum recycling targets for glass contained in packaging waste by weight was 60% by the end of2008. While on average this target was reached, seven countries were still below and four just about reached the threshold (EUROPEN, 2013).

The production of glass waste in the period 2004—2016 in the EU-28 countries overall increased by 28.8% and in the EWM sample countries increased by 69.8%, with Poland increasing almost two-fold (167.8%) and Italy almost doubling (87.6%).

Source: Elaborated from Eurostat. (2019b). Generation of waste by waste category, hazardousness and NACE Rev. 2 activity (Dataset).

The recovery rate for glass in the period 2008-2016 also showed an overall 12.7% increase at the level of EU-28 countries. Germany increased the recovery rate by 4% — despite a 3.5% decrease from the level of 2014. Spain, France and Poland experienced a significant growth (24.2%, 21.4% and 36.1% respectively). Overall the EWM sample countries had a 9.6% increase in the period, with only the Netherlands experiencing-3%. This shows that the EWM countries are in the recovery process from the significant drop occurred between 2008 and 2012.

Source: Elaborated from Eurostat. (2019b). Generation of waste by waste category, hazardousness and NACE Rev. 2 activity (Dataset).

According to FEVE, in Europe, a total of 12 million tons of glass (bottles and jars) was collected and recycled, which represents a 74% average recycling rate of glass in the EU-28. To be more precise, FEVE reports that the amount of glass packaging put on the market is composed of 74% of collected material, while the detailed picture of average recycled content of glass containers produced in Europe is more nuanced with 40% of flint, 50% of brown, 52% of undifferentiated colour and 80% of green glass.

FEVE is inclined to assume that the increase in the average recycled glass content is directly linked with the matching increase in the availability of better-quality cullet colour-separated that can, therefore, be more profitable for bottle-to-bottle recycling in the European market (FEVE, 2019a). This is apparent in FEVE General Secretary Adeline Farrelly’s comment that around 90% of collected glass bottles is used for creating new ones (Morris, 2019).

However, the EU average 74% rate of glass collection for recycling is the outcome of a much diversified situation, with Belgium, Finland, Austria, Sweden and Slovenia being over 90% thanks to separate collection schemes for glass performing very well in providing high quality secondary raw material for the production industry to process, and countries such as Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Malta and Romania being under 40% (Morris, 2019).

FEVE estimates that 580kg ССЬ is saved throughout the supply chain when one tonne of cullet is recycled in a glass furnace. Additionally, recycling a ton of used glass saves a tonne of virgin raw materials, causes a 20% reduction in air and a 50% reduction in water pollution (FEVE, 2019b). As a matter of fact, the conclusions of a UK study (comparing ССЬ emissions associated with cullet recycling versus those of production based on virgin materials), concluded that recycling delivers the greatest reduction in C0₂ emissions even when glass is exported to other European container manufacturers (Barlaz, 2005).

WRAP provided in 2008 an update study on the UK glass market situation; the main result was that the overall glass packaging recovery and recycling rate was growing — although the set target for 2008 was not yet reached - and municipal glass collection rose almost 30% in 2006/2007. Exports of cullet from the UK increased sharply with the majority going towards Spain, Italy and Portugal for closed-loop recycling into wine bottles. The report points out some challenges, most notably that increases in energy and raw material prices can well increase the economic incentives to use cullet, however, the shortage in high-quality cullet, for which they blame the trend towards mixed-colour and co-mingled collections, is a major obstacle (WRAP, 2008).

What was reported by WRAP points out how, although waste export can be regarded as negative, in the overall picture, both strategically (in terms of in-country reprocessing capacity) and environmentally (given the impacts of transport), in the case of the UK glass industry, exports provide valuable resources to other EU countries while they do not meet the requirements of the UK industry, thereby achieving both an economical and environmental positive objective, as the recovered resource is used in place of a virgin one and additionally generates economic value.

Furthermore, a Danish study assessing what could be the additional benefit that improving glass collection could bring, under the existing system where wine bottles are collected and re-melted along with cullet in Denmark and other EU countries, concluded that in the long term reliance on exports may not be a secure option (Barlaz, 2005).

Overall, the prime benefit of using glass recyclate lies in lower energy and raw material costs (Shewmake et al., 2020). However, substituting second-life materials for virgin materials could be more viable for existing furnaces if it were possible to secure access to the required quantity of sufficiently pure and adequate colour cullet.

Plastic

The first EU Strategy for plastics within a circular economy was adopted in 2018 with an aim to shape and transform the way plastic products were designed, used, produced and recycled. Therefore, they support plastic consumption and production practices that are safer and more sustainable (EU, 2018; Ranta et al., 2020).

According to the OECD (2018), the disruptions caused by the recent Chinese decision to restrict the import of plastic waste has highlighted how poor the plastics recycling domestic markets are in terms of sorting and recycling capacity investment. This may be ascribed to the low profitability and the concerns potential buyers (i.e., manufacturing firms) have about availability and quality of supplies.

The rates of plastic recycling exhibit a significant variability across countries, as well as in terms of waste streams and polymer types with some significantly more widely recycled than others. For example, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) easily exceeded a 10% recycle rate, while polystyrene (PS) and polypropylene (PP) were closer to zero (OECD, 2018).

On average, the EU has recycling rates of 30%, which is rather high considering the fact that some other high-income countries were typically around 10%. Unfortunately, the recycling rates in countries that are considered low to middle income are largely unknown, especially because of the informal nature of the recycling sector and them being the destination for significant portions of high-income countries’ waste, with data suggesting recycling approaching 20-40% in some (OECD, 2018).

When looking back at Barlaz (2005), around 40% of all the EU’s capacity for plastics conversion to products in 2004 was concentrated in Italy and Germany. However, in the same period plastics demand grew in all countries, along with a trend of relocating plastics processors to central Europe, something that saw increased demand in raw material shifting east with Poland’s conversion capacity growing at 7-8% per year.

In 2004, according to PlasticEurope (2005), the overall European material-recycling rate of post-consumer plastics was around 18%. Of this, mechanical recycling sat at 16% and feed-stock recycling at 2%, Poland had a mechanical recycling rate of about 15—20%, the Netherlands and UK of around 20-25%, while Italy was over 25% (Barlaz, 2005).

The situation changed substantially in 2016-2017 with the six larger EU countries (plus Benelux) accounting for almost 80% of the European demand in 2016 (PlasticEurope, 2017), with Germany leading with a 24.5% followed by Italy, France, Spain, the UK and Poland with 14.2%, 9.6%, 7.7%, 7.5% and 6.3%, respectively.

The demand of the players in the Plastics converter market main sectors has been driven by packaging (39.9%), building and construction (19.7%) and automotive (10%), while sectors such as electrical and electronics, household, leisure and sports and agriculture accounted for 6.2%, 4.2%, and 3.3% respectively, leaving the remaining 16.75% to be divided among other sectors including medical, furniture, mechanical engineering, appliances, etc. (PlasticEurope, 2017). The expected minimum service life of plastics products ranges from as little as 1 to over 50 years or more and once it reaches its end-of-life, 27.3% ends up in landfills, 31.1% is recycled (63% inside and 37% outside the EU) and 41.6% is used in the energy recovery process. However, for the first time in 2016 more plastic waste was recycled than landfilled with 27.1 million tonnes of plastic waste collected (PlasticEurope, 2017).

Overall, the EU situation is improving with plastic waste recycling increasing almost by 80% in ten years and, more specifically, recycling increasing by 79% in terms of volumes of plastic waste collected and 61% in terms of energy recovery while disposal in landfills decreased by 43%. However, in many EU countries, the first or second option of treatment for plastic post-consumer waste is still the landfill.

Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries have 10% or less plastic sent to landfill and many of them have implemented landfill restrictions; the UK and Ireland have up to 30% of plastic still being sent to landfills while Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are up to 50% (PlasticEurope, 2017).

According to Barlaz (2005), in 2004, the majority of EU recycling of plastic packaging waste was mainly performed within the EU as per data from the European Association of Plastics Recycling & Recovery Organizations (EPRO). However, the same data show that only Italy (and Spain) achieved self-sufficiency at the national level (Barlaz, 2005). According to PlasticEurope (2017), in 2016, Germany and the Czech Republic achieved plastic packaging recycling rates ranging between 50% and 52%, while only other 19 countries reached rates higher than 35%.

In terms of the nature of the recycled plastic waste, in 2004, 74% of all plastics demand in EU was concentrated in polyethylene (including LDPE, LLDPE and HDPE), PP, PVC, polystyrene and PET (Barlaz, 2005). In 2016, they accounted for 80.7% (PlasticEurope, 2017). As different kind of plastics have different performance characteristics, it means that their recycling routes are different, additionally, and although plants pre-processing waste to recycle may deal with a range of materials, the equipment and methods used across all plastic materials are not interchangeable or possible at all (WRAP, 2010).

Unlike for paper (and to some extent glass), recycling may significantly change the properties of plastics, so it is not always possible to recycle a particular type directly back into the same production process, thus achieving a closed loop, which would imply decomposing plastic polymers into their constituent parts (a technology that is just developing and is not yet mature) (Barlaz, 2005).

According to PlasticEurope (2017), there is good and long-standing trading relationship between the European plastics industry and many countries, which led to a 2016 extra-EU trade balance for manufacturing of $9.7 billion, almost S25 billion exports and just over $15 billion imports. The 2016 extra-EU trade balance for processing was at $5.2 billion with almost S14 billion exports and slightly above $8 billion imports.

Source: Elaborated from PlasticEurope (2017).

In 2004, the prospects for recycling plastics were significantly influenced by the demand for industrial raw materials in emerging economies (e.g., China) and this was changing the global balance of supply and demand at a fundamental level (Barlaz, 2005). The recent import ban imposed by China (and probably India and other South East Asian countries) is once more shaking up plastic recycling, potentially forcing Western countries to invest more in their own ability and capacity to contain plastic use, increase recycling and address (and possibly sort-out) plastic pollution.

This is particularly relevant as the very nature of plastics automatically links it to oil prices, applicable to new and recycled plastics the like. When oil prices are high then oil- based virgin polymer is more expensive than recyclate and vice versa, however, the many ditferent types of plastics used in the same product (think of plastic bottles and their caps) make plastic recycling difficult.

Mixing plastic waste in the recycling process makes the extraction of pure polymers impossible and prevents the exploitation of their individual potential; additionally, the emerging non-oil-based polymers - once entered into the waste stream - are problematic as they can contaminate the recyclate and thus require specific management for the production of second-life polymer streams (Barlaz, 2005; Winterich et al., 2019; WRAP, 2016).

In the following tables the data available in terms of trade in recyclable raw materials by waste are reported (Eurostat, 2019j).The import trend is a clear growth and when comparing 2018 to 2004, we have on average an almost three-fold increase, with Poland scoring almost six-fold, and the intra-EU28 import with an average increase of almost three-fold.

In addition, in this case Poland had an almost six-fold increase, the extra-EU28 import has grown on average by almost three-fold with both Spain and Poland experiencing over six-fold growth.

In terms of exports, the period 2004—2018 saw an average two-fold increase across these countries, with Poland at over five-fold. In terms of intra-E28 exports, the increase has been almost three-fold with Poland at almost five-fold and Italy almost four-fold. Finally, the extra-EU export has had an overall average almost three-fold increase in the 2004—2018 period, with Poland experiencing over seven-fold.