Established in 2014, Circulus-Berkel is an association of 8 municipalities, which serves eight municipalities with around 440,000 inhabitants in the management of waste and resources and the management of public spaces.

Their mission is “A waste free society, a clean environment, a society concerned. In this way we add value to the region."

The main areas where the organisation works are the following:

Environment: reduce waste and improve the use of raw materials
Social activation: by increasing working opportunities
Improved citizen participation to achieve better results and provide a more satisfying service.

Main triggers to start the procurement and goals pursued

Textiles represent a huge environmental burden for society, derived mostly from the use of toxic and hazardous substances in the production process for textiles and the generation of greenhouse gas emissions derived from the production of textiles. Furthermore, clothes and textiles which still are in good condition are thrown away together with the residual waste and end up in landfills.
In the Netherlands only 30% of used textiles are separately collected, 30% end up in the residual waste and 30% can currently not be traced.

There are currently many ongoing initiatives that seek collecting used textiles and giving them a second life; initiatives that have been started by social companies and NGOs mostly at local level.
In our region, we introduced in 2016 the “BEST tas” (BEST-bag), a resistant bag made of recycled plastic that aims to collect items such as books, small electric appliances, toys and textiles, items that otherwise end up in the residual waste stream. The bags are picked up at home a number of days a year. In the past year, we managed to collect 60,000 BEST bags in our region, diverting over 420,000 kilos of used items from the landfills. 

The introduction of the BEST bag has resulted in an increased 8% in the separated collection of textiles and 11% for small and medium-sized electric and electronic appliances.
The total number of separated collected textiles has grown to 1900 tons in the regions.

Our current goals are:

To achieve better transparency in the reuse of textiles and the recycling chain. At the moment as it is the case of many other regions, a big part of the collected textiles are being exported to other countries, without sufficient transparency on the process and the consequences
Create (social) jobs within the region
Increase our re-use and recycling quotes and reduce the amount of residual waste.
For the non-reusable textiles, we are currently looking into new techniques for mechanical or chemical recycling.

Approach to the procurement process & time schedule

Currently we are in the middle of the preparation of an EU market dialogue for the creation of a textile sorting plant for about 1900 tons of textiles from our household, which will take place between the months of May and June.

Our aim is to start it on January 1st 2018.

We expect to create about 40 new jobs in our region with the new sorting plant.

Related information

Information to the BEST bag approach (in Dutch): http://www.waardemagazine.nl/#/artikel/best-tas-houdt-grondstoffen-uit-het-restafval

Circulus Berkel main website: https://www.circulus-berkel.nl/

Since the European Commission announced the withdrawal of the Waste Package in 2015, to be replaced with a more comprehensive strategy towards a Circular Economy, there has been a familiar level of debate and disagreement over its content and approach.

However, the acceptance in January by the European Parliament of challenging targets towards recyclable waste was heralded as a milestone on the path towards a more resource- and waste-efficient Circular Economy in the EU.

Revising Directives

The new "Waste Package" is, in legislative terms, designed to synchronise various Directives relating to waste, recycling and the related topics of packaging and disposal. The new targets relate primarily to the Waste Framework Directive, the Landfill Directive and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive.

The targets, when initially mooted in early 2016, were greeted by the waste sector with some concern. The complexity of introducing targets to an area of the economy characterised by rapid but uneven innovation and technological development meant that the Commission's approach had to be to impose relatively long-term targets: to prohibit landfill of recyclable waste by 2025 and to recycle 70% of municipal waste and 80% of packaging waste by 2030.

Challenges for cities

The achievement of these targets across the EU will be no mean feat. While many local and city-regional authorities who have invested in recycling innovation will have little difficulty reaching such targets, currently only 44% of municipal waste across the EU is recycled or composted.
The interpretation of the targets in member states might also present difficulty. The decision over which method should be used to calculate recycling and recovery rates was hotly contested in the drafting process throughout 2016, with industry and municipalities lobbying for the method laid out in the Waste Framework Directive, while environmentalists pushed for the more challenging WEEE Directive to be used. Looking at a process of implementation which extends over 8 years, the definition of "recycled" waste will come in for scrutiny in the application of these targets.

Focus of targets

The European Commission has been keen to demonstrate the potential value of waste targets to the private sector, which has greeted the European Parliament's vote with enthusiasm for the project job creation and market opportunities the targets create in various member states.
However there has been criticism of the targets from proponents of a Circular Economy for being uni-dimensional, and not challenging enough. The focus of the targets on waste output rather than on product manufacture, plastic-sourcing and reduction of e.g. packaging has led some actors in the waste sector to conclude that the Waste Package represents a non-binding, transitional legislative intervention. But proponents of a more product-oriented, differentiated policy had some success in influencing the outcomes - for example, a target of a 30% reduction in food waste is considered likely to have some impact on the food and drink sector. Overall there will be some concern that an opportunity had been missed, through a focus on residual waste, to regulate further on packaging and inefficient manufacture.

Sector Watch will follow developments on the targets through the EU Council and the formal decision-making process in the coming months.

More information on the vote in the European Parliament's Environment Committee on 24 January 2017 can be found at europarl.europa.eu/news

On 31 January – 1 February took place in Brussels a NEW InnoNet workshop - A practical side of innovations for circular economy.

The workshop connected stakeholders in the field of waste management with the aim to present and discuss real innovation cases, experiences and lessons learned on closing material loops, especially for materials recovered from ICT waste, WEEE, ELV and packaging.

Some of the ongoing and upcoming European initiatives presented at the workshop were the following:

EIT Raw materials

EIT Raw materials – initiated by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), aims to connect academic partners with businesses in Europe to collaborate on finding new innovative solutions to secure the supply of raw materials and improve the performance throughout the value chain, from extraction to the creation of products and its final disposal.

Based in Berlin, the network has currently over 120 partners in 22 EU-countries, which benefit from sharing knowledge, information and expertise.

At the event Ignacio Calleja, thematic officer for circular economy and Recyling at EIT Raw Materials, shared the objectives of EIT Raw materials and some project examples of partnerships between research institutions and the private sector. Some of the supported startups can be consulted here.

More information about EIT Raw materials

The Circular Lab

Rosa Trigo, Tecnology and Innovation Manager at ECOEMBES presented The Circular Lab, a new initiative around the recycling of waste packaging that will see the light in the spring of 2017.

The idea is to bring together all proposals that seek closing loops through innovation in the field of waste packaging. The Circular Lab will be based in La Rioja, Spain and it will turn the region into a great centre for experimentation, as it aims to test at real scale new contributions in the field of:

-    Development of the packaging of the future

-    Integrated waste management within smart cities

-    Responsible consumption

-    Development of new techniques and processes that facilitate the recycling of packaging waste by citizens

More information about the Circular Lab

Second life for products: RREUSE

The aim of RREUSE is to reinforce the importance of giving semi-new products a second life. Instead of improving recycling targets, RREUSE advocates for including re-using targets in EU legislation.

The organisation represents social enterprises which are active in reusing, repairing and recycling products and represents approximately 77,000 employees and over 60,000 volunteers and trainees that work at any of their 30 member networks across 18 countries.

Mathieu Rama, policy officer at RREUSE provided an overview of the barriers and challenges of giving products a second life and bringing them back into the market, presented approaches from other countries promoting reuse of products such as Sweden or Austria and suggested recommendations to several EU Directives and the EU Circular Economy Package.

More information about RREUSE

Competitive markets for products designed from recycled plastics: ZICLA

G. Borge, Project Manager at ZICLA proved during the event that the market is ready to integrate recycled products made from old products if the required techniques are used.

Some of the most demanded products include the Zebra system, a product made from post-consumption and post-industrial waste that is used to separate bicycle lines from normal car roads and the Vectorial system, used to improve accessibility and mobility for public bus users.

More information about ZICLA