Position papers
Amendments to the Renewable Energy Directive
In its current form, the RED does not sufficiently address bio-waste and its importance in terms of the quantity of waste to be treated by Anaerobic Digestion and the Greenhouse Gas savings associated with this renewable energy source. REPowerEU includes a Biomethane Action Plan to increase EU production to 35bcm by 2030 to accelerate the EU’s energy independence while boosting the green transition. As per EUROSTAT waste statistics for the EU27 for 2020, generation of vegetal waste (bio-...
Position & Amendments to the Ecodesign of Sustainable Products Regulation
On 30 March 2022 the European Commission published their proposal for a ‘Regulation establishing a framework for setting ecodesign requirements for sustainable products and repealing Directive 2009/125/EC’. The proposal was launched as part of the Circular Economy Package I, together with other relevant initiatives. We understand that the text sets out a framework of requirements within which manufacturers and other parties will have to operate addressing each product group and specificities...
Response to the Second Consultation on the Waste Framework Directive - July 2022
MWE welcomes the second public consultation on the revision of the Waste Framework Directive. As the online consultation is addressed to the general public we find that the questionnaire and its multiple choice answers are lacking in clarity and depth for an expert audience. We have therefore not responded via the generic questionnaire but through the detailed, technical response developed by the full Municipal Waste Europe membership,...
Response to Public Consultation on Right-to-Repair
Repair is at the core of the engine that will power reuse and resource efficiency while contributing to dramatically decrease waste generation. It is known that a large number of items placed in waste bins and civic amenity sites hold the potential to be repaired or refurbished and thus reused. However, once inside the waste collection systems these items and valuable raw materials usually end up in the least preferable waste treatments or, in the best case, follow recycling streams. Action...
Finding a True Balance for Waste Management in the Taxonomy
The Taxonomy Regulation should be used to ‘push’ the implementation of the top echelons of the Waste Hierarchy, particularly in jurisdictions where good governance is lacking, by facilitating investment in activities supporting Waste Prevention and Separate Collection but the Regulation should also empower the environmentally sound treatment of the non-recyclable material, residual waste, thorugh non-hazardous waste incineration with energy recovery. CEWEP, ESWET, FEAD and MWE...