Falkenberg: ‘Circular is the fashion’

Europe – Karl Falkenberg, the Environment Director General of the European Commission, has called on to a ban on waste. ‘We should close all landfills in Europe, waste is out’ , he told visitors at the Recycling and Waste Management tradeshow (RWM) held this week in Birmingham, UK.

The European Commission is expected to publish its ‘more ambitious’ circular economy package later this year after the first draft was axed at the end of 2014. Falkenberg has played a major role in drafting both the original and revised EU Circular Economy proposals.

‘Linear production approaches are over, circular is the fashion’, stressed Falkenberg. He underlined that the world not only needs to become ‘much more efficient’ in how it manages its resources but also that those resources need to be kept in the loop for as long as possible. ‘That means designing our products to last. We must take waste from the fringes and put it at the heart of the economy.’

Focusing on the UK, Falkenberg said that UK is lagging behind countries such as Germany with regards to how much waste it is currently sending to landfill, adding that he is always ‘surprised to see that the UK exports so much waste for incineration to use as fuel in other countries.’

Don’t miss it! More on Karl Falkenberg’s ambitions in the upcoming October issue of Recycling International.