CD Laboratory for Design and assessment of an efficient, recycling-based Circular Economy

This CD Laboratory researches how the objectives of the EU Circular Economy Package can be achieved in the most cost-effective way while maximising environmental benefits. In this way, it contributes to sustainable, future raw materials management in Europe.

With the Circular Economy Package, the European Union is endeavouring to reduce imports of raw materials as well as the environmental impact of waste management. This is to be achieved through targets for higher recycling rates, among other things. Recyclable waste is to be efficiently separated and concentrated in separate waste streams. The aim is to achieve a level of purity that enables high-quality recycling. However, the targets set for recycling rates are so ambitious that even countries with highly developed waste management systems such as Austria are struggling to achieve them in the most environmentally friendly way and at the lowest possible cost.

The CD Laboratory is developing a research-based knowledge base for the efficient utilisation of secondary raw materials from different waste streams. This is to be achieved through the development of new and the improvement of existing methods of mechanical sorting, recycling and the efficiency assessment of waste management systems and processes.

Firstly, a new method for assessing the efficiency of recycling in waste management systems is being developed. The method relates economic and environmental impacts to material-based recycling indicators, in particular recycling rate, material concentration efficiency and sample heterogeneity. All indicators are tested on existing waste management systems.

Three technical and organisational measures to improve recycling are then designed and investigated within the framework of selected case studies: (1) Increasing the separate collection of recycling materials such as glass, plastics, metal, paper and cardboard and textiles from households, taking into account future compositions and increasing heterogeneity of waste. (2) Improved automated sorting of different waste streams (residual waste, outputs from existing residual waste sorting plants) to separate recycled materials such as plastics, paper and cardboard. (3) The recycling of glass, metals and minerals from waste incineration ashes.

Furthermore, options for innovations in automated sorting that go beyond the current state of the art are designed and analysed. Finally, the results from this and from the case studies are used to design scenarios for improved waste management with regard to recycling, which in turn are subjected to the efficiency assessment method.

The results of the project are intended to support public and private stakeholders in deciding how to achieve the objectives of the circular economy package as efficiently as possible, i.e. with the least possible use of economic resources while maximising environmental benefits. In this way, the project contributes to sustainable, future raw materials management in Europe.