ESWET Response to the Call for Evidence on the Bioeconomy Strategy
ESWET welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to update the EU Bioeconomy Strategy. ESWET fully supports the overarching goals of the new strategy to promote circularity, strengthen EU competitiveness, and enhance resource efficiency while addressing the EU’s climate and energy goals. In this context, ESWET would like to share its views and recommendations on how WtE technologies and related processes can contribute to a circular and competitive EU bioeconomy.
Waste-to-Energy and Bioeconomy
While the circular economy and bioeconomy rightly prioritise the prevention, reduction, and recycling of waste, it is essential to acknowledge that not all waste – even when of biogenic origin – can be feasibly or safely recycled. Certain waste streams are contaminated, mixed, or degraded to a point where recycling is no longer technically or economically viable. For example, items such as food-soiled paper (e.g., used pizza boxes), heavily contaminated cardboard, biodegradable plastics mixed with conventional plastics, or certain types of composite and multilayer packaging pose significant challenges for recycling technologies.
In these cases, conventional recycling processes are unable to separate or purify the materials to the required standards, resulting in either excessive costs, technical limitations, or compromised material quality. Furthermore, maintaining the safety and integrity of recycled materials – especially for applications such as food contact materials or critical industrial uses – imposes strict quality standards that contaminated streams often fail to meet.
This reality underlines the indispensable role of WtE technologies in the bioeconomy and circular economy frameworks. WtE provides a sustainable and environmentally sound solution for the treatment of non-recyclable waste, allowing for the recovery of both energy and valuable materials while preventing such streams from ending up in landfills.
In particular, WtE allows biogenic waste fractions that are unsuitable for material recycling to be recovered in the form of renewable energy, contributing to decarbonisation and energy security. Without WtE, significant portions of the biogenic waste fraction would either accumulate in landfills – with associated methane emissions and land use concerns – or remain underutilised, undermining the EU’s goals for climate neutrality, energy transition, and circularity.