The dynamic interaction between circular economy and the environment: Evidence on EU countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 0734242X2110570
Author(s):  
Hsiao-Tien Pao ◽  
Chun-Chih Chen
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
Recycling Rate ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
Percentage Point Increase ◽  
Secondary Raw Materials ◽  
Point Increase ◽  
Short Run

This study examined the causal dynamics between circular economy (CE) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in European Union (EU) countries. The selected CE indicators included the trade in recyclable raw materials (TRM) and the circular material use rate (CMR) in the secondary raw materials area, the generation of municipal waste per capita (GMWp) in the production and consumption area and the recycling rate of municipal waste (RMW) in the area of waste management. The coefficients of the panel cointegration equations showed that for every 1 percentage point increase in RMW, average CO2 emissions decreased by 0.5%, while for every 1 percentage point increase in GMWp and TRM, the average CO2 emissions increased by 0.263% and 0.101%, respectively. It also showed that the recycling volumes and recycling rate had a positive but very limited impact on the CMR. The panel vector error correction model result showed that there were long-run bidirectional causalities between CE indicators and carbon emissions, and the TRM had a short-run negative impact on waste generation. However, the short-run impact of CE indicators on carbon emissions was not significant, which may be because the European CE is still in its infancy. The finding suggests that policymakers should adopt multilateral policies such as reducing carbon emissions, improving the efficiency and productivity of resource management and waste recycling, and increasing investment and innovation in the secondary raw materials market to achieve resource decoupling and impact decoupling. The decoupling of these two types is a necessary condition for sustainable development.

scholarly journals MUNICIPAL WASTE MANAGEMENT IN ROMANIA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EU. A STAKEHOLDERS’ PERSPECTIVE

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 850-876
Author(s):  
Carmen Nastase ◽  
Carmen Emilia Chașovschi ◽  
Mihaela State ◽  
Adrian-Liviu Scutariu
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Management System ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
Household Waste ◽  
Recycling Rate ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
Waste Management System ◽  
Use Of Resources ◽  
The Eu

The European waste policy is focused on reducing the negative impact of waste, eliminating the unhealthy use of resources, and on better waste management. The aim of this paper is to analyse Romania’s waste management practices in the EU context. The research methodology is based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis. The descriptive data analysis reveals significant differences among EU countries in terms of the municipal waste generated and the recycling rate. The municipal waste generated registers decrease, whereas there are significant increases in terms of the recycling rates in the EU countries. The qualitative research is based on the analysis of structured interviews among stakeholders, relevant for the waste management in Romania. The information obtained based on interviews was processed using NVivo and the main findings are focused on recommendations for improving the waste management system. We have identified a lack of adequate public support in the waste field due to insufficient awareness programs, lack of operator’s obligation for separate waste sanitation, people's discouragement to separate their household waste, and lack of bins to separate collection. The correction of identified weaknesses could lead to an improved waste management system, feasible only through an active involvement of stakeholders

scholarly journals Statistical Evaluation of the Level of Development of Circular Economy in European Union Member Countries

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6401
Author(s):  
Barbara Fura ◽  
Małgorzata Stec ◽  
Teresa Miś
Keyword(s):  
Circular Economy ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Member States ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
High Level ◽  
Level Medium ◽  
The Eu

In this paper, we have analysed the level of advancement in circular economy (CE) in the EU-28 countries. First, we used a synthetic measure to examine CE advancement in EU countries in each of the Eurostat CE distinguished areas, i.e., production and consumption, waste management, secondary raw materials, and competitiveness and innovation. For the empirical analysis, we applied 17 Eurostat indicators to the CE areas. To find the synthetic measure in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016, we used multidimensional comparative analysis, i.e., a zero unitarisation method. Second, based on the synthetic measures of the CE areas, we created a general synthetic measure of the CE advancement of the EU-28 countries as well as the countries’ rankings. Third, we classified the countries into groups according to their level of advancement in CE, i.e., high level, medium–high level, medium–low level and low level groups. Finally, we applied a similarity measure to evaluate the correlation between obtained rankings in two most extreme moments in the period of analysis (2010, 2016). Our analysis covers all EU member states, as well as “old” and “new” EU countries separately. Our results confirm that highly developed Benelux countries, i.e., Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium, have the highest CE advancement level. Malta, Cyprus, Estonia and Greece are the least advanced in CE practice. Apart from that, on average, there is some progress in CE implementation, significant disproportions between the EU countries were observed, especially among the “new” member states.

scholarly journals Textile packaging waste in the context of implementing the concept of circular economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (05) ◽  
pp. 499-503
Author(s):  
Eftalea Carpus ◽  
Angela Dorogan ◽  
Cristina Stroe
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Integrated Management ◽  
Recycling Rate ◽  
Waste Plastics ◽  
Packaging Waste ◽  
Management Hierarchy ◽  
Legislative Measures

At European level, there are concrete measures regarding waste management in the circular economy, and these refer to: mandatory recycling rates for different categories of waste: plastics, glass, metals, paper and cardboard as well as biodegradable waste; the obligation to redesign the products in order to increase the proportion of raw materials resulting from recycling and to increase the degree of recycling of products, in order to consider them as secondary raw materials; promoting and stimulating the reuse of products; increasing the recycling rate of municipal waste by 2030 to a minimum of 65%; increasing the recycling rate of packaging waste by 2030 to a minimum of 75%; reduction of food wastage and implicitly of the resulted food waste by 50% by 2030. The large amount of packaging waste determined the taking of legislative measures that defined the obligations of pack- aging producers/distributors, recycling objectives and the waste management hierarchy. New targets for the recycling of packaging waste predict a growth to 65% in 2025 and 70% in 2030 [1]. Textile packaging waste is an important link in the integrated management of waste whose recovery contributes to the conservation and improvement of natural capital.

scholarly journals CHANGES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF MUNICIPAL WASTE IN POLAND - TOWARDS THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara GOŁĘBIEWSKA
Keyword(s):  
Circular Economy ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
Lower Quantity ◽  
Waste Production ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Generation Level ◽  
Mixed Waste ◽  
Increasing Demand

Increasing demand for consumer goods causes more and more waste. In line with the principle of sustainable development, waste policy should aim at ensuring that waste produced has the least impact on the natural environment. One solution is to use a circular economy. According to this concept waste production should be minimized as much as possible. Therefore, action should be taken to enable all raw materials to "stay" in economy for as long as possible. Main goal of the article is defined as an assess of the changes in the generation and management of municipal waste before and after the amendment of the Clean House Act. As the research tasks were adopted to present changes in waste management legal regulations: • to indicate waste generation level in Poland, • the origin of the waste, • to analyses and evaluate changes in the field of waste recovery, recycling and reuse. In this context there is an important question, how could we decrease production and consumption in order to generate lower quantity of waste or recycle them appropriately and use again. After the entry into force of the law on the maintenance of cleanliness and order in municipalities, there was a decrease in a production of mixed waste. Between 2012-2016 there was an increase in the amount of municipal waste picked up selectively. The amount of mixed waste recycled in 2016 has increased fourfold in comparison to 2012, and the amount of waste recycled has increased by 42 times.

scholarly journals Fabrication of Agglomerates from Secondary Raw Materials Reinforced with Paper Fibres by Stamp Pressing Process

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (19) ◽  
pp. 3946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Echterhof ◽  
Thomas Willms ◽  
Stefan Preiss ◽  
Matti Aula ◽  
Ahmed Abdelrahim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Circular Economy ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Electric Arc ◽  
Paper Recycling ◽  
Cold Compression ◽  
Secondary Raw Materials ◽  
Arc Furnaces ◽  
First Results ◽  
Metallurgical Processes ◽  
By Products

The use of secondary raw materials in metallurgical processes such as steelmaking is an important contribution to the circular economy aspired to by EU members and many other countries. The agglomeration of dusts, fines and sludges is an important pretreatment step to enable the use of these materials in subsequent melting processes, such as steelmaking in electric arc furnaces (EAFs). It also reduces the amount of by-products and waste materials that are currently waste for disposal and are landfilled. The presented research is part of the Fines2EAF project, which aims to increase the value of steelmaking residues by internal recycling and use or reuse in the form of agglomerates. The approach followed in this project is the use of a hydraulic stamp press and alternative binder systems to produce cement-free agglomerates. The first results of lab-scale agglomeration tests of six different recipes with varying pressing forces are presented in this paper. It is shown that the addition of fibres from paper recycling has a strong effect on the cold compression stability of the agglomerates, by far exceeding other effects such as increased pressing force. Overall, the agglomerates produced in the lab show promising characteristics, for example, cold compression stability and abrasion resistance, which should allow for use in EAF steelmaking.

scholarly journals Using Recycled Materials in Packagings to Meet the Goals of Circular Economy

Proceedings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ieva Kazulytė
Keyword(s):  
Human Health ◽  
Environmental Effects ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Hazardous Substances ◽  
Hazardous Chemicals ◽  
Recycled Materials ◽  
Chemical Substances ◽  
Packaging Waste ◽  
Secondary Raw Materials

Packaging waste that is not recycled or reused has a negative environmental effects and presents serious concern. At the same time, various secondary raw materials, which were used to produce packaging from recycled materials, can affect human health and the environment because they can contain harmful chemical substances. For this reason, it is necessary to investigate the existence of hazardous chemicals in recycled materials. This paper analyzes issues related to the production of packaging by using materials from recycled packaging waste with a focus on the influence of the hazardous substances that the waste may contain. This paper presents the results of a survey interviewing packaging manufacturers who use recycled materials in packaging, revealing problems that packaging manufacturers face in the manufacturing of packaging from recycled materials.

scholarly journals Current state and possibilities for oversized municipal waste management in the regions of Ukraine

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-126
Author(s):  
T. A. Safranov ◽  
T. P. Shanina ◽  
V. Yu. Prykhodko
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Management System ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
Household Waste ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
Secondary Raw Materials ◽  
Current State ◽  
Municipal Waste Management ◽  
Used Cars

Human life and activities generate municipal solid waste (MSW) consisting of municipal household waste (residential waste), waste from commercial organizations, waste from public institutions and organizations, waste from industrial enterprises, waste from urban maintenance and improvement. A common feature for all these types of waste is the fact that a municipality is an institution responsible for organization, management of its disposal process. Such waste is generated in everyday life, across the food network, when carrying out repair and construction works, in the municipal transport and communication systems, etc. The aim of the work is to assess the current state and possibilities of oversized municipal waste management in the regions of Ukraine. In order to achieve this aim, the study of the existing regulatory documents and existing experience in the field of oversized municipal waste management was conducted. The work is based on the analysis of the published data, as well as on the materials of our own research. The implementation of the MSW management system implies creation of a municipal center for recycling secondary raw materials based on the modular quarterly principle. A recycling station with a mandatory module for oversized waste reception and sorting should become a main structural element of the recycling center. In addition, it is proposed to create separate sites for collecting the oversized waste. This has already been implemented in some cities of Ukraine. When differentiating SMW flows, due attention is not paid to the used cars that can contingently be attributed to oversized secondary raw materials. In Ukraine the existing recycling centers do not meet modern requirements. Due to the lack of necessary experience in handling the used cars, one should turn to foreign experience and focus on the requirements of the developed countries. According to international standards, the life of a car is 10 years with its subsequent utilization in such a way that prevents it from having a negative impact on the environment. Since, as of today, 27% of cars in Ukraine are older than 30 years, so in case of their mandatory utilization, the number of such cars will be approximately 2.5 million. With such total number of used cars each region of Ukraine will need to handle about 100 thousand recyclable cars. It is hardly possible to create the recycling centers in each region, so, at the first stage, it is advisable to organize such centers, for example, in each economic region or cluster. The creation of the oversized municipal waste management system in the regions of Ukraine will make it possible to turn the waste into useful products, to reduce the level of a negative environmental impact and to obtain not only ecological, but also socio-economic effects.

scholarly journals THE ROLE OF THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT IN IMPLEMENTING THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY IN ROMANIA

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia Marcela Danu ◽  
Elena Nechita ◽  
Liliana Rozemarie Manea
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Labour Productivity ◽  
Waste Recycling ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
Recycling Rate ◽  
Consumption Expenditure ◽  
Low Level

In the present paper we analyzed the position of the Romanian urban environment in the process of implementing the circular economy, with the correlations and interdependences between the phenomena and demo-economic processes and the forms for the application of the circular economy. The poor implementation of the circular economy in the urban areas in Romania is conditioned by the low level of income, the expenditure, the consumption expenditure and the degree of low urbanization, the low level of labour productivity, etc., and by the psychology of the decision makers that is still not adjusted to the requirement to make the best choices for sustainable development of the economic system. We have highlighted the correlations between: the municipal waste recycling rate and the resource productivity in Romania; the total income of the population in the urban areas of residence in Romania and the waste recycling rate; the total average expenditure per person in urban areas and the municipal waste recycling rate; the monthly average consumption expenditure per person, in urban areas and municipal waste recycling rate; the employed population rate in urban areas and the municipal waste recycling rate; the urban population living in the 41 counties of Romania and Bucharest and the municipal waste recycling rate.

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