Waste Management and Sustainable Development in a Circular Economy an Evidence of new Challenges in Europe

The European economy is largely linear by design, resulting in avoidable environmental and human health impacts, inefficient use of natural resources and over-dependency on resources from outside Europe. Moving to a circular economy would alleviate these pressures and concerns, and deliver economic, social and environmental benefits (EEA, 2017). In the past, the creation of waste in connection with production and consumption was accepted as a necessary evil. Today, that apparent common sense is increasingly being challenged: circular economy, zero waste, closed-cycle, resource efficiency, waste avoidance, re-uses, recycling – all these terms can be attributed to the ideal of achieving a world largely without waste, and instead one with a responsible attitude to resources, materials, products and the environment. However, it will require a comprehensive holistic concept to actually ensure that approaches like avoidance, re-use, and recycling are taken into account in every stage of the product life cycle and at the level of materials and energy – with environmental product design applied from the very outset to permit recycling at the end of the product life cycle (Wilts 2016). During the past decade, economists have become increasingly aware of the important implications of environmental issues for the success of development efforts. We now understand that the interaction between poverty and environmental degradation can lead to a self-perpetuating process in which, as a result of ignorance or economic necessity, communities may inadvertently destroy or exhaust the resources on which they depend for survival. Rising pressures on increasingly taxed environmental resources in developing countries can have severe consequences for Third World self-sufficiency, income distribution, and future growth potential