Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
EU and government policy across Europe is increasingly driven by the need to influence
manufacturing practices in an effort to decrease the environmental impact of products during
their manufacture, use and end-of-life.
The EU Strategy for Sustainable development emphasises the strategic target to break the
link between economic growth, the use of resources, and the generation of waste.
Therefore natural resources and wastes is one of four key environmental priorities
described in the 6th European Action Programme. The objective is to decrease the amount of
waste generated and to achieve a relative decoupling between economic growth and
generation of waste.
Europe aims to reduce the final amount of waste by 20% by the year 2010 and by 50% by
the year 2050.
Figure 5 shows the amounts of manufacturing waste generated in nine Western European
(WE) countries and seven Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries [6]. From 1996 to
2002 the generation of waste in the manufacturing sector increased by 15% in WE (from 123
Mtonnes to 141 Mtonnes) and by 42% in CEE (from 60 Mtonnes to 86 Mtonnes).
Due to lack of proper time series data from the large countries UK, France and Spain are
missing in the indicator. The three countries are responsible for about half of the
manufacturing waste generation in WE. The few data available from the countries indicate a
slight decrease in waste generation.
Figure 5. Manufacturing waste generation in Western Europe and Central Eastern Europe in Mtonnes.
Figure 6 depicts generation of manufacturing waste held against the gross value added in
the manufacturing sector in the years 1996 to 2002 in the 13 European countries for which
data are available. The gross value added by the manufacturing sector is steadily rising in the
period (6%), but not as much as the generation of manufacturing waste (24%).
