The objectives in 2016 were high, but seven years later little has come of the circular economy. That was the hard conclusion that the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) drew on Thursday in the Integration Circular Economy Reporting which it publishes every two years at the request of the government. At this rate, the ambitious circular targets set by the government in consultation with companies, knowledge institutes and environmental organizations are far from being achieved.
What about the circular objectives? And what is the current state of affairs? Three questions on this topic.
1 What are the goals exactly?
The Netherlands must have a circular economy by 2050, is the political ambition expressed in 2016 by the Rutte III cabinet. That objective has not become very concrete, but the core objective of a circular economy is the eradication of waste streams: everything is reused.
As an interim step, the government has committed itself in the ‘Government-wide Circular Economy Program’ to using only half of the abiotic — non-living — raw materials by 2030. These are minerals, metals and fossil raw materials such as natural gas and petroleum. Ways that lead to this are reduction in consumption, extending the lifespan of products through, for example, more repair and replacement of finite raw materials for sustainably produced raw materials such as bio-raw materials.
2 How is the Netherlands doing?
In 2020, Dutch companies processed, traded and consumed 359 billion kilos of raw materials, according to the PBL. Only a quarter of this came from the Netherlands, the rest had to be imported. Between 2018 and 2020, the use of raw materials fell by 7 percent. At first glance this is not wrong, but according to the PBL it is an incidental decrease that can mainly be explained by a short-term reduction in the use of fossil fuels. This is in turn because the Dutch took fewer flights during corona lockdowns and went to work less by car. The PBL expects raw material use to rise again to the old level after 2020.
With a view to 2030, things are therefore not going well and it seems that halving raw materials in 2030 was nothing more than an ambitious goal. If you zoom out, you will see that the Netherlands is not doing badly at all compared to other countries. Especially as a recycling country, the Netherlands belongs to the European top. 78 percent of the waste processed in the Netherlands is recycled and relatively little waste is landfilled.
It should be noted that there is little mention of ‘high-quality recycling’. Material flows are hardly separated from each other properly, so that plastic, for example, mixes with other substances. The result of that process is a low-value application, such as verge posts. “But we have had enough of that now,” says Aldert Hanemaaijer, who co-wrote the PBL report as a researcher. “With high-quality recycling, you have to strive for an equivalent application.”
3 How can it be better?
Both the PBL and Arnold Tukker, professor of Industrial Ecology at Leiden University, point to the government. “Without policy, not much will come of the circular objective,” says Tukker.
Examples of ‘coercion and coercion’ that the PBL is aiming for are a number of mandatory instruments that the government has so far left in its toolbox. The PBL would prefer, for example, that producers be obliged to include a minimum percentage of secondary (recycled) material in new products. Hanemaaijer: “You can then say: in 2030 we want at least 10 percent of a new building to come from an old building, and let that percentage increase over time.”
As an example, the PBL indicates that there could also be an input levy on the use of fossil raw materials, such as crude oil and ethylene, for plastics. This would encourage companies to look for circular products. After all, primary raw materials are now often even cheaper than recycled materials.
An important part of the solution also lies in product design. The ecological footprint that products leave behind, says Tukker, is largely determined during design. For recycling, it differs quite a bit whether a plastic bottle consists of eighteen different types of plastic or of two. A piece of electronics is easier to repair if the parts are connected with a click connection instead of glue. Hanemaaijer: “The government can also enforce that. You have set very ambitious goals, so now you also have to start pricing and standardizing.”