Europe – Denmark is aiming to recycle twice as much of its household refuse by 2022, to which end its government has presented a strategy for increasing recycling levels and also energy recovery.
According to Danish environment minister Ida Auken, there will be a six-fold increase in the amount of food waste recycled by households to 300 000 tonnes by 2022. In the restaurant and retail sectors, the use of this waste for biogas production will quadruple by 2018.
Furthermore, a quarter of paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastic packaging in the tertiary sector will be recycled. The plan also sets a 75% target for collections of old electronic equipment from households; at the EU level, the new WEEE Directive calls for 65% of electronic and electrical equipment placed on the market to be collected from 2019, or alternatively 85% of WEEE generated annually in each member state.
Another goal of the Danish plan is to recover 70% of residual waste from the treatment of end-of-life vehicles and other equipment containing hazardous waste, such as fridges. This residual waste is currently sent to landfill on a huge scale.
According to Eurostat data, Denmark generates the highest volume of municipal waste in the EU at 718kg per capita per annum.
Source: ENDS Europe
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