Europe's demand for resources reaching far beyond its borders - 14 June, 2012.
Demand for materials is so intense that between 20 and 30 % of the resources we use in Europe are now imported. With the boom in international trade, EU consumption and production damage ecosystems and human health far beyond Europe’s borders, according to a report published by the European Environment Agency (EEA).
'Unsustainable resource use is a truly global
problem – Europe’s voracious demand for materials is felt around the
world," EEA Executive Director Jacqueline McGlade said. "With growing
demands on the world’s limited stock of resources, it is imperative that Europe
makes more efficient use of both virgin materials and waste."
The report, 'Material
resources and waste' is an update to the Thematic assessment on material
resources and waste within the EEA’s 2010 State and Outlook report.
It states that Europe is using resources more efficiently, though it has used
increasing volumes of raw materials in absolute terms. While this trend has
been interrupted by the economic downturn, it is likely that increasing
resource consumption will resume with renewed economic growth.
Using
material resources more efficiently - from virgin materials…
Average annual use of material resources is nearly
15 tonnes per person. The bulk of this ends up as ‘stuff’ accumulated in the
economy; the rest is converted into emissions or waste.
Europe's economy is heavily dependent on imported
raw materials — in 2011 approximately 1 600 million tonnes of raw materials
were imported into Europe – that’s about 3.2 tonnes per person. Fuels accounted
for most of this amount.
Targets set in the recent past have not always been
met: the EU was expecting to become 'the most resource‑efficient economy in the
world' and 'substantially reduce waste generation', according to the Sixth Environment
Action Programme (6EAP)adopted in 2002, but this has only been partially
successful.
The EU’s Europe 2020 strategy, adopted in 2010,
identified resource efficiency as one of its main goals, and it is hoped that
this will revitalise efforts to develop an economy which is competitive, inclusive
and provides a high standard of living with much lower environmental impacts.
These ambitious goals can only be achieved with considerable changes in
production and consumption patterns.
…
to waste
The European economy generates more than five
tonnes of waste, including hazardous waste, per inhabitant each year, and each
citizen throws on average half a tonne of household waste into the bin.
Nonetheless, there has been a slight reduction in waste volumes in recent
years, probably connected to the downturn.
Moreover, waste management in Europe has improved.
Recycling rates for municipal waste have more than doubled in the area of the
EU plus Norway and Switzerland, going from 17 % of municipal waste recycled or
composted in 1995 to 38 % in 2010. Approximately 60 % of packaging waste is now
recycled.
The EU aims to become a 'recycling society' as part
of a greener economy which provides both better resource efficiency and
improved security of supply. Recycling already covers a large share of EU
consumption of certain materials, especially paper and cardboard, iron and
steel but is below 10% for others such as copper, concrete and plastics. Better
collection schemes and recycling infrastructure could lead to more recycled
materials in new products.
There are several side benefits from better waste
management. For example, full implementation of the EU Landfill Directive’s
targets, via using municipal waste as resource instead of sending it to
landfill could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 62 million tonnes of CO2‑equivalent
in 2020 compared to 2008, according to analysis
carried out by the EEA . Increasing recycling also creates more
jobs at higher income levels : overall employment related to recycling
increased by 45 % in Europe between 2000 and 2007.
Resource
efficiency and Rio+20
Efficient use of materials, reducing waste, and
using waste as a resource are important pillars of a ‘green economy,’ set to be
a key theme at the United
Nations Sustainable Development Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June this
year.
Source: www.eea.euroa.eu
14 June, 2012.