29 August 2011: The European Environment Agency (EEA) has released a report on the mitigation potential of municipal solid waste management, emphasizing recycling to avoid emissions.

The report, titled “Waste opportunities: Past and future climate benefits from better municipal waste management in Europe,” covers all the EU Member States (excluding Cyprus), as well as Norway and Switzerland. It estimates that these countries could make greenhouse gas emission savings of up to 78 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020, or 1.53 % of Europe’s emissions in 2008, based on a ‘life-cycle approach’ to calculating emissions from waste, thus considering all direct emissions from waste during processing and transport, as well as accounting for emissions that are avoided in other parts of the economy – for example when fossil fuels are displaced by energy recovered from waste. [EEA Press Release] [Publication: Waste Opportunities: Past and Future Climate Benefits from Better Municipal Waste Management in Europe]