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The role of plastics in Europe’s circular economy
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Plastics are essential in society. Yet value chains are unsustainable — generating emissions and increasing waste and pollution. Reducing such impacts demands moving towards a circular and sustainable plastics system. This briefing covers plastics production and consumption in Europe, the impacts on the environment and climate change, and how we can shift to a circular economy for plastics. Work from the Circularity Metrics Lab on plastics (EEA, 2024a) and a report on the Circularity Metrics Lab for Plastics from the European Topic Centre on Circular Economy and Resource Use inform this briefing.
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European bathing water quality in 2022
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Bathing is an extremely popular and important leisure activity in Europe. European citizens need to know if the quality of lakes, rivers, and coastal and transitional waters is poor, sufficient, good or excellent, so they can make informed decisions on where to bathe without health risks. The current assessment is published in the context of the Zero Pollution Action Plan and covers 21,658 officially designated bathing sites in the 27 EU Member States (EU-27), 119 in Albania and 196 in Switzerland.
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Managing the systemic use of chemicals in Europe
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Chemicals are embedded in practically every single manufactured good in the EU. On the one hand, chemicals play a key role in ensuring quality of life and offer new solutions to deliver the green and the digital transitions. On the other, our increasing reliance on chemicals leads to serious problems. From creating adverse health effects to contributing to the climate crisis, chemicals come with a cost — so much so that we have now exceeded the planetary boundary for chemical pollution. Where do we go from here? This briefing describes the systemic use of chemicals across Europe’s current systems of production and consumption. Moreover, it discusses key policy measures foreseen in the European Green Deal’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability that offer significant potential to ensure consumer safety, cut pollution and clean up material flows.
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Total mismanaged PPSI in coastal NUTS3 in 2012 and 2018, by regional sea; Sum of the mid Median estimates (items/years) in larger and smaller european catchments within marine regions; and Median of items by litter group, by regional sea
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The figure shows three different descriptors of the quantity of marine litter by marine region.
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Data and maps
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Maps and graphs
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Summary of preliminary classification and identification of ‘non-problem areas’ and ‘potential problem areas’ with respect to marine litter in Europe’s Seas for all areas and for four regions
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The MALT tool assesses status with respect to maring litter, assigning a class of High, Good, Moderate, Poor or Bad. The larger figure shows the sum of assessed area having each of the status classes across Europe's Seas and the four smaller figures shows the summarizerd area for each status class within four regions: (1) Baltic Sea, (2) North-east Atlantic Ocean, (3) Mediterranean Sea and (4) Black Sea
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Data and maps
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Maps and graphs
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Total amounts of generated PPSI (plastic packaging and small non-packaging plastic items) waste (million tonnes) that is managed (light orange) and mismanaged (dark orange) in overall EEA-32 countries and United Kingdom, in 2012 and 2018
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See report Marine Litter in Europe-An integrated assessment from source to sea (https://forum.eionet.europa.eu/etc-icm-consortium/library/subvention-2022/tasks-and-milestones-2022/1.1.8.1-marine-litter-assessment/milestone-2-addressing-comments-eea-and-finalization-assessment-report/final-version-november-2022-eea-approval/etc-icm_marine-litter-assessment_master_v5.2_06112022_for-eea-approval)
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Maps and graphs
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Where does marine litter come from?
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Media
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Infographics
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From source to sea — The untold story of marine litter
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We’ve all seen the photos. Piles of plastic waste drifting in the open sea. A daily tide of plastic and other detritus washed up on our beaches. Scenes of turtles and fish tangled in discarded fishing nets. Yet all of it is preventable. This web report traces the problem of marine litter from source to sea to help policymakers and citizens understand what we can do about it.
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From source to sea — The untold story of marine litter
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We’ve all seen the photos. Piles of plastic waste drifting in the open sea. A daily tide of plastic and other detritus washed up on our beaches. Scenes of turtles and fish tangled in discarded fishing nets. Yet all of it is preventable. This web report traces the problem of marine litter from source to sea to help policymakers and citizens understand what we can do about it.
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Outlook and recommendations
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The EEA has produced a detailed status check in this report on marine litter in Europe. The main take-home message is that the EU is ‘not on track’ to achieve its waste prevention, reduction and management goals. The results of the report, captured in these web pages, give policymakers and interested stakeholders the material to make informed decisions about short- and long-term actions needed to address the growing problem of marine litter.
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From source to sea — The untold story of marine litter
