New steps to improve the management of bio-waste
The European Commission has laid out steps to improve the management of bio-waste in the EU and tap into its significant environmental and economic benefits. Bio-degradable garden, kitchen and food waste accounts for 88 million tonnes of municipal waste each year and has major potential impacts on the environment. But it also has considerable promise as a renewable source of energy and recycled materials.
A Commission assessment has identified significant environmental and economic benefits from improved management of bio-waste in the European Union. Commission's Communication lays out recommendations on the way forward to reap these benefits in full. The most promising approaches include the prevention of bio-waste and biological treatment with the production of compost and biogas.
The main environmental threat from bio-waste is the production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. If biological treatment of waste was maximized, the most visible and significant benefit would be avoided greenhouse gas emissions – estimated at around 10 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2020.
About one-third of the EU's 2020 target for renewable energy in transport could be met by using biogas produced from bio-waste, while around 2% of the EU's overall renewable energy target could be met if all bio-waste was turned into energy.
Full implementation of existing policies supported by improved bio-waste management should deliver environmental and economic benefits estimated at between €1.5 and €7 billion, depending on the ambition of recycling and prevention policies.
Priority actions
Priority actions include rigorous enforcement of the targets on diverting bio-waste away from landfills, proper application of the waste hierarchy and other provisions of the Waste Framework Directive to introduce separate collection systems as a matter of priority.
Supporting initiatives at EU level – such as developing standards for compost – will be crucial to accelerate progress and ensure a level playing field across the EU. This will involve specific guidance and indicators for bio-waste prevention with possible future binding targets, as well as compost standards and guidelines on the application of life cycle thinking and assessment in the waste sector.
Member States have vastly diverging national policies for bio-waste management, ranging from little action in some Member States to ambitious policies in others. The environmental and economic benefits of different treatment methods for bio-waste depend on local conditions such as population density, climate and infrastructure.
Highly efficient systems based on separating various streams of bio-waste already exist in Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Cataluña in Spain and certain regions in Italy.