Bio-Waste in Europe — Turning Challenges Into Opportunities
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EEA Report No 04/2020 Bio-waste in Europe — turning challenges into opportunities ISSN 1977-8449 EEA Report No 04/2020 Bio-waste in Europe — turning challenges into opportunities Cover design: EEA Cover photo: © Brendan Killeen Layout: Rosendahls a/s Legal notice The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the official opinions of the European Commission or other institutions of the European Union. Neither the European Environment Agency nor any person or company acting on behalf of the Agency is responsible for the use that may be made of the information contained in this report. Brexit notice The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union did not affect the production of this report. Data reported by the United Kingdom are included in all analyses and assessments contained herein, unless otherwise indicated. Copyright notice © European Environment Agency, 2020 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. More information on the European Union is available on the Internet (http://europa.eu). Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2020 ISBN 978-92-9480-223-1 ISSN 1977-8449 doi:10.2800/630938 European Environment Agency Kongens Nytorv 6 1050 Copenhagen K Denmark Tel.: +45 33 36 71 00 Internet: eea.europa.eu Enquiries: eea.europa.eu/enquiries Contents Contents Authors and acknowledgements .............................................................................................. 4 Key messages .............................................................................................................................. 5 Executive summary .................................................................................................................... 6 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 9 2 Why is bio-waste relevant? ................................................................................................ 11 3 Bio-waste management in Europe — status and trends ................................................ 15 3.1 Collection of bio-waste .........................................................................................................15 3.2 Treatment of separately collected bio-waste ....................................................................20 4 Improving food waste prevention in Europe ................................................................... 25 4.1 Environmental and economic impacts of food waste ......................................................26 4.2 Policies applied to reduce food waste in European countries ........................................28 4.3 Good practice .........................................................................................................................30 5 Quality management and creating a market for compost and digestate ................... 32 5.1 Production of compost and digestate ................................................................................32 5.2 Market for compost and composted digestate .................................................................34 5.3 Quality of compost and digestate .......................................................................................35 5.4 Quality management system ...............................................................................................36 6 Innovation and future developments ............................................................................... 38 6.1 Creating new materials and products from bio-waste .....................................................38 6.2 Innovation related to energy recovery from bio-waste ....................................................40 6.3 Animal feed production ........................................................................................................40 6.4 Opportunities and challenges for innovations ..................................................................40 Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................ 42 References ................................................................................................................................. 43 Annex 1 Countries that responded to the survey .............................................................. 51 Bio-waste in Europe — turning challenges into opportunities 3 Authors and acknowledgements Authors and acknowledgements Lead authors Eionet Ann van der Linden (VITO, ETC/WMGE) and Almut EEA member and cooperating countries provided Reichel (EEA). valuable information through a questionnaire that was sent out during the execution of this project, as well as extensive comments during the review Contributors of this report in spring 2020. The following ETC/WMGE staff contributed to drafting the report: Jan Brusselaars, Andrea Winterstetter, Stakeholders Evelien Dils (VITO), Mona Arnold, Tuuli Teittinen (VTT), Ann Braekevelt (OVAM), Bart Ullstein (BCI). The European Commission, the European Compost Network, the European Environmental Bureau and Martin Adams and Daniel Montalvo (EEA) provided the Association of Cities and Regions for sustainable guidance on the framing of the report, and Ioannis Resource management provided valuable input and Bakas and Ybele Hoogeveen (EEA) provided useful comments. comments. 4 Bio-waste in Europe — turning challenges into opportunities Key messages Key messages • Bio-waste — mainly food and garden waste — share of municipal waste composted and digested is a key waste stream with a high potential for was 17 % in 2018 — up from 11 % in 2004 — a contributing to a more circular economy, delivering high proportion of bio-waste still ends up in the valuable soil-improving material and fertiliser as mixed waste that is landfilled or incinerated, even well as biogas, a source of renewable energy. in many countries with well-established separate collection systems. • Recently revised waste legislation within the EU's circular economy strategy has introduced • More and more plastic consumer products are a number of targets and provisions that will labelled as 'compostable' or 'biodegradable', drive both the prevention and the sustainable and there has been a proliferation of different management of bio-waste. With a share of 34 %, labels. This creates risks of confusing consumers, bio-waste is the largest single component of contaminating compost and increasing the municipal waste in the EU. Recycling of bio-waste costs of treatment. Clear rules on labelling is key for meeting the EU target to recycle 65 % of of compostable/biodegradable plastics are municipal waste by 2035. needed, and we also need to identify which applications might have overall benefits and under • About 60 % of bio-waste is food waste. Reducing which conditions. the demand for food by preventing food waste can decrease the environmental impacts of producing, • Quality standards and quality assurance processes processing and transporting food. The benefits for compost, digestate, fertilisers and soil improvers from reducing such upstream impacts are much help to build trust in them and are an integral higher than any environmental benefits from part of a good bio-waste management system. recycling food waste. The Sustainable Development A Europe-wide requirement to implement quality Goals' target of halving food waste by 2030 has assurance systems covering all compost and helped to put preventing food waste high on the digestates would improve trust in and awareness policy agenda in most European countries. of the value of bio-waste. In many countries such systems already exist. • Approximately 88 million tonnes (173 kg per person) of food is wasted every year in the EU-28 (28 EU • Treatment of separately collected bio-waste is Member States) along the entire food value chain. dominated by composting, but anaerobic digestion, This corresponds to about 20 % of all food produced. with biogas production, is increasing. Biogas is a source of renewable energy. Research and • To enable bio-waste to be used as a source of innovation increasingly explore the opportunities high-quality fertiliser and soil improver, it needs for using bio-waste, mainly from food processing, to be collected separately at source while keeping as a new source of higher value products such impurity levels low. Contamination with plastics as volatile fatty acids and biofuels, but many is a growing concern, and plastics need to be challenges remain. prevented from entering bio-waste. Although the Bio-waste in Europe — turning challenges into opportunities 5 Executive summary Executive summary This report provides an overview of bio-waste embedding a bio-waste strategy into broader waste and prevention, generation, collection and treatment circular economy strategies. Targets or pay-as-you-throw in Europe. It aims to support countries by sharing schemes will create clear incentives to divert bio-waste experience and best practice. Bio-waste (Box ES.1) from residual waste. Awareness-raising activities, can play an important role in the transition to providing good information to consumers and matching a circular economy, by both preventing its generation treatment capacity to the volume of separately collected and capturing its potential as a source of valuable bio-waste are other crucial factors. secondary resources (Figure ES.1). The focus of this report is on food and garden waste from households Food waste accounts