Safe and efficient waste shipments for a resource efficient and circular economy
Brussels, 10 October 2022 – Ahead of the upcoming rapporteurs’ meeting on 12 October, FEAD echoes and bolsters the last OECD Trade and Environment Working Paper from on reverse supply chains for a resource efficient and circular economy, which fully reflects the concerns raised by the waste management industry along the past years, and more recently in conjunction with the ongoing revision of the EU Waste Shipment Regulation.
A circular economy means a resource efficient economy. Circular economy business models rely on reverse supply chains and reverse logistics to close material loops, such as recycling waste and scrap into secondary raw materials.
Such activities extend beyond borders and require the transboundary movement of end-of-life products to enable economies of scale. However, recent developments in trade in waste and scrap have mainly focused on increasing transboundary controls, such as the import bans for certain categories of waste and scrap introduced in China, and the plastics and e-waste amendments to the Basel Convention.
Trade impediments to circular business models relate to heavy and lengthy procedural requirements to ship end-of-life products across borders for their circular use. Complex and time-consuming procedural and administrative requirements run against circular economy business models, increasing their costs and work.
Peter Kurth, FEAD President said:
“We need to overcome trade restrictions caused by heavy procedural requirements in cross-border waste shipments and strengthen trade facilitation mechanisms to ensure that valuable resources can re-enter the production processes where they are needed, closing the loop of the circular economy.”
Read FEAD’s concrete proposals here.
FEAD is the European Waste Management Association, representing the private waste and resource management industry across Europe, including 19 national waste management federations representing 3,000 waste management companies. Private waste management companies operate in 60% of municipal waste markets in Europe and in 75% of industrial and commercial waste. This means more than 320,000 local jobs, fuelling €5 billion of investments into the economy every year. For more information, please contact: