CYPRUS RECEIVES WARNING OVER RECYCLING FAILURE

Cyprus Mail - article by Katy Turner - 29 October 2018

An early warning has been issued by the European Commission to Cyprus as it is among member states at the greatest risk of failing to meet the EU’s 2020 recycling targets for municipal waste.

The four worst recyclers are Malta, Romania, Greece and Cyprus. In 2016, all four recycled less than 20 per cent of their total waste.

According to Eurostat data in 2016, Cyprus’ municipal waste recycling rate was 17 per cent while the landfilling rate was 75 per cent. The target for 2020 is 50 per cent, rising to 65 per cent by 2035.
In 2016 Europeans generated an average of 480kg of municipal waste per person, 46 per cent of which was recycled or composted, while a quarter was landfilled. But municipal waste represents only around 10 per cent of the total waste generated in the EU.

While the amount of rubbish heading to landfill has dropped in the EU as a whole, standing at 24 per cent in 2016, again Cyprus was way off the target. The target is for only 10 per cent of municipal waste to end up in landfill by 2035.

Construction and demolition produces the most waste in the EU by weight. The 2020 target for this sector is for 70 per cent to be recycled, with over half of states reporting they already do. For the period 2013-15 Cyprus reported that less than 60 per cent was recycled.

It was a similar story for waste electrical and electronic equipment, for which the EU has set a target in 2015 to collect a minimum of 4kg of waste per person, a target which according to the European Commission Cyprus missed by a “considerable margin”. Countries such as Denmark and Sweden collected as much as 12kg.

The early warning report for Cyprus concluded that the island’s continued difficulties in implementing EU waste law are mainly due to the lack of infrastructure and collection systems for recyclables and the lack of coordination between different administrative levels in addition to insufficient capacity. It also pointed out that there were a lack of incentives to prevent waste and improve recycling. Moreover, it said the scheme for packaging waste in Cyprus is not effective and the monitoring and enforcement of its activity is insufficient.

Specifically the report suggested that Cyprus develops a better system to ensure that reporting on packaging recycling by producers putting goods on the market is accurate.

It also suggested the creation of pay as you throw schemes that would include better systems for bio waste, collection of food waste from homes and the creation of green points.