It was exactly a dozen years ago that the European Parliament passed the 2008/98/CE directive concerning goals for the disposal of rubbish. Member states were expected to reach these goals by 2020.
Spain hasn’t.
Before we go on, it’s worth setting out the difference between EU directives and EU Regulations. The latter is a law that becomes effective in all member states as soon as it is passed, whilst the former is a route map where each country passes its own laws to achieve to reach a goal by a certain date. There are also EU Decisions, Recommendations and Opinions, the first of which is binding and the others not.
Anyway back to Directive 2008/98/CE, which sought to minimise the negative impact caused by generating and managing waste on health and the environment. It also classified the different categories of waste, marking the end of 2020 as the date by which the 50% of the waste created in EU cities across the continent should be recyclable.
By 2018 things were still looking pessimistic concerning reaching this goal, certainly in the case of Granada where only an unimpressive percentage of waste handled by Inagra is recyclable. Inagra has the contract for handling the city’s waste disposal.
In fact, the latest annual official figure that the company has on its webpage shows recyclables as only 11.67% for 2019. In 2016 it was 11.57% with the intervening years of 2017 & 2018 even less: 10.63% and 11.04% respectively.
The City Hall has cranked up public awareness campaigns since February 2020 using competitions and exhibitions for highlighting waste recycling amongst children. When the pandemic hit the school campaign went online with workshops etc.
The EU directive not only set goals for 2020, but also ones for 2025 (55%) and 2035 (65%) in an effort to achieve a circular economy.
This might all seem very depressing but the EU, compared with many other parts of the First World, is a long way ahead in tackling this problem.
Editorial comment: one of the major problems is that recycling bins are often overflowing with waste diligently separated by consumers and deposited because they are rarely emptied. Perhaps it’s about time they gave the contract to more efficient waste-collection-&-recycling companies.
(News: Metropolitan Area, Granada, Andalucia)