Interview with Esra Tat, Associate Director, Zero Waste Europe
The issue is rooted in our throw-away culture
A Europe without waste is the main objective for which the eponymous association Zero Waste Europe is working. Thanks to their lobbying and animation of a particularly active network, the concept is gaining ground. For them, the question is no longer "if" this path is the solution, but rather "how" and "when" change will happen. Esra Tat, associate director of the organisation, shares this ambition with us.
INTERVIEW
Sustainability Mag: What would a zero waste Europe look like?
Esra Tat: Well, that’s what makes me get out of bed each morning. What our organisation works towards is a Europe where nothing and no one gets wasted. It is a place where we not only have a just use of resources and limit waste, we also create regenerative systems that phase out waste by design and contribute to our resilience as societies. These kinds of systems promote reuse, local level solutions and rebuild connections within communities.
Redesigning our relationship with resources is a must. Therefore, it is essential to push for policy frameworks and promote solutions that allow living a very nice and fulfilling life without creating waste. That is absolutely possible! In a nutshell, creating a thriving Europe where we don’t need to choose between wellbeing or living within the planetary boundaries.
How does Zero Waste Europe work to get to that vision?
In terms of creating a Europe within ecological boundaries and putting community rights first, we work in three ways. One aspect is influencing EU legislations and making sure that they are enforced in an ambitious manner at national level. We have a lot of good frameworks and tools in terms of legislation but some of them are just not happening.
Secondly, we foster the implementation of zero waste solutions, not only to enforce such legislation but also to go beyond them. Working with municipalities, local businesses and other stakeholders, we make those alternatives happen thanks to our network. From pioneer and now certified Zero Waste Cities, to reuse business models, there are inspiring examples all across Europe.
We also work on bridging these initiatives at the European level, taking them to the next level to offer an accessible and mainstream alternative to our throw-away culture. For instance, many countries are developing alternative take-away systems or returnable packaging, often thanks to pioneer entrepreneurs, but they don’t necessarily interoperate. If you get a reusable cup from a cafe in Switzerland and cross the border to Austria, it doesn’t necessarily work. It ends up in the bin after all, or you need to carry your own container, which is possible but requires a little extra effort. With our ReuSe Vanguard Project (RSVP), we are actively looking at creating conditions for big-scale change to reusables to happen, thanks to a #GetBack policy campaign and a European implementation project in five countries looking at key market segments (including beverage and take-away packaging).
Lastly, a big part of our work is coordinated with our 34 members in 27 European countries, and we also largely collaborate with other networks and alliances. We are for example a founding member of Break Free From Plastic, a global movement that has been fighting since 2016 for a future free from plastic pollution.
Have we progressed on the waste issues in Europe? Where do we stand today?
The zero waste movement started as an alternativeto incineration more than 20 years ago. In Europe, we started getting organised 15 years ago. This being said, on certain fronts, we have achieved more in the last five years than in the last 15 years combined.
For the last five years, the conversation has started to shift from recycling and better waste collection to prevention, which is at the core of the zero waste systems thinking. Decision-makers are becoming aware that the issue is rooted much deeper in our “throw-away culture”. Our production systems and models encourage throw-away consumer habits.
Next to this, and it is both a victory and an issue – plastic has indeed been seen as a problematic material, supported by the general public that has started to avoid it. But industry players started replacing it with other materials instead, like cardboard or metal. This is clearly not a solution either. Many alternative packaging still contain plastic elements that are harmful to human health and the environment, or are themselves problematic (in terms of collection, recycling etc). But above all, beyond the conversation on materials, what we really need to tackle is disposability and over-production. Here, the new legislations such as the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation and the Waste Framework Directive could help define more ambitious targets in terms of prevention.
The conversation has also more recently broadened in terms of recognising that waste is not only an environmental issue. The energy crisis raised questions about overproduction. On the health dimension too, despite the delay in some key policy processes, we are realising the amount of chemicals present in packaging is harmful to human health.
What about waste exports and garbage countries?
In Europe, part of our waste goes to third-world countries where they don’t have the technologies to process it. It is what was called “waste colonialism”. And why does it end up there? Because we don’t have the technologies either and it is simply cheaper. This is clearly an environmental justice issue. Some countries have stopped accepting foreign waste, like China back in 2018. The problem is that all this waste still needs to go somewhere. So, the destinations have simply changed. Currently, one of the main countries for European waste export is Turkey. But Turkey also counts amongst the top three countries disposing waste in the Mediterranean Sea.
Zero Waste Europe is the European Chapter of a global movement, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), and part of our work also consists in limiting Europe’s export of false solutions, such as incineration, while at the same time in Europe we are trying to set policies that restrain investment in such technologies. This double game is not acceptable. This was one of our focuses on the Waste Shipment Regulation revision.
Beyond the improved conversation and awareness of the issue - have Europeans managed to reduce their packaging waste?
In actual numbers, I’m afraid not. On the contrary, the household average has increased in the last few years. Some legislation has favoured limitations, but the pandemic set us back in terms of using a lot of single-use products again and certain sectors like e-commerce keep growing which in turn increases packaging waste. But again, alternatives are being tested across Europe, and the policy framework should encourage and facilitate those. This is why the current Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation conversation is critical.
What does a zero waste business look like?
That’s a key topic. Because even if at the local level, municipalities design and implement the most ambitious zero waste strategies, they still need and partly depend on businesses to provide accessible solutions systems. Zero waste businesses have a few distinctive characteristics. First, the type of services and products that phase out waste and toxics by design and are based on system change (rather than on incrementalism or efficiency optimisation). They provide solutions that prioritise durability, repairability and favour the reuse economy. And second, they often contribute to the local resilience with job creation.
After the successful release of the Zero Single-Use Plastic Directive, for which you played a decisive role, what are the next urgent issues on your desk? Your next battles?
We keep fighting to tackle the problematic shift from plastic to other materials. The human brain is wired to find loopholes and avoid doing what is needed! Some industry players have been great at acting this way. Instead of reducing packaging waste effectively, they are turning to other material for their disposable products. We work intensively to avoid what is actually nothing else than a displacement of the problem.
Besides, we are also very attentive to specific sectors, such as the textiles industry which heavily relies on plastic as a material and needs to rethink its business model.
We are putting tremendous efforts on ensuring that targets from the current policy conversations lead to targets that are ambitious and binding enough, knowing that the core challenge is still to address over-production. Of course, some
of the bigger players have an interest in business as usual and I would even say in “sustainability as usual”, which doesn’t look into the need to reduce resource consumption.
Next to these, we are looking at ensuring that all these conversations are well embedded in the broader conversation happening on the decarbonisation agenda as part of the EU Green Deal. In this case again, the current status quo is still about fixing the symptoms of our system. For instance, there is a solid push for all sorts of carbon capture technologies that will miraculously decarbonise, but once again, we jump into techno-fixes, without trying to address the root causes, or closing the tap upstream. Most problems are related to over-production and the consumerism that it allows. The issue here is that, in the European narrative, reducing means having less and downgrading the quality of life, which is why it is so difficult to convince people.
And yet, shall we implement the net zero plans by 2050, our research study together with Eunomia shows that such efforts are unlikely to be enough to limit warming to 1.5°C targets of the Paris agreement. In practice, this means that we need to move even further towards reduction. It is a clear call. Let’s imagine we push all these different agendas and assume that some of these high-level technologies will work in sectors like cement, plastics, aluminium, or steel, we still need reduction to comply with the allocated carbon budget.
Le Bercail Beauvais - Refil and reuse systems.
In your opinion, what is the future of packaging?
Packaging is really a systems problem, not a material specific one. Of course, we have by now very much demonstrated why there are some materials that we need to stop using altogether, and why substitution from one material to another will still not tackle the issue of disposability. So, the future of packaging is limiting the use and rethinking it by creating and implementing systems that rethink the need and use of packaging, such as refill and reuse systems. It’s not about changing the packaging material to cardboard or paper but adapting the business model in-depth. It should be easy for the consumers, rather than asking them to radically change their habits. This needs to happen by redesigning the way businesses operate.
To be read also in the dossier "The second life of our packaging"