Yesterday (20th September), the new publication of the European commissions (EC) Roadmap to a resource efficient Europe was released. The report detailed the need for member states to give greater priority to reuse and recycling in order to drive Europe towards greater resource efficiency. The EC has stated that they target that waste should be managed as a resource by the year 2020.
The new roadmap details plans to look at how economic incentives can be used to stimulate the secondary materials market. This includes how they can establish greater demands for recycled materials, and further develop end-of-waste criteria.
Further to this they have committed to a move towards reuse and recycling with targets to minimise residual waste to near zero. They will review existing targets for the various options of waste management as deemed by the waste hierarchy (waste prevention, reuse, recycling, recovery and landfill diversion) by 2014.
The text states “If waste is to become a resource to be fed back into the economy as a raw material, then much higher priority needs to be given to reuse and recycling. A combination of policies would help create a full recycling economy.”
The EC is looking at methods to facilitate best practice on waste collection and treatment among member states. They are also looking at how they can develop more effective steps to combat breaches in legislation.
With reuse set to become of even greater significance Recipro has an important role to play in resource management in the construction sector. The management of materials in construction presents a massive challenge to ensuring that UK builders can realise sustainable construction targets whilst also meeting the new European roadmap for resource efficiency.
Recipro sourced this article from Edie.net