IMPEL Waste Management and Circular Economy meeting and site visit held on 19-20 June in São Miguel, Azores
10 Jul, 2023
On 19th of June a meeting of the IMPEL project “Waste Management and Circular Economy” (WMCE) - Subgroup IED & Circular Economy, took place, in Furnas Research and Monitoring Centre, in São Miguel Island -Azores, hosted by the Environmental Inspectorate of the Regional Secretariat for the Environment and Climate Changes of the Azores.
40 IMPEL members from 15 countries attended the meeting on site and online; the meeting hosted 6 participants from the EU DIES Project, that aims to increase technical and institutional capacity of the competent authorities for Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) implementation to understand and control Industrial Pollution in Türkiye. The approaches from different countries on the connection between circular economy and the Industrial Emission Directive have been shared.
Permitting and inspection authorities in Europe (‘regulators’) play an important role in making the circular economy work. Increasingly they are faced with the challenging task of encouraging industry to become more circular and facilitating circular innovations which promote resource efficiency, prevention of waste and the use of new secondary raw materials. A crucial element in the transition to the Circular Economy are the innovations at production and recycling facilities that aim at resource efficiency, the prevention of waste and the use of production residues or materials recovered from waste as secondary raw materials.
The IED&Circular economy subgroup focuses on how regulators can make Industrial Emissions Directive permits more circular and how IED installations can contribute to circular economy. The aim is to develop a Guidance for permit writer and inspectors on how to make IED permits more ‘circular’ and to develop a Circular Economy Index for IED installations.
On 20 June a site visit to the “Ecoparque” of São Miguel (run by MUSAMI) was held; the operator explained how waste is treated and which are the major difficulties and challenges related to waste management in the island.