When we throw a plastic bottle in the right waste container, we feel virtuous because we have done our part for the environment. However, we cannot imagine the huge effort that will be needed to ensure that our bottle is effectively recycled.

As the COP26 United Nations climate change conference prepares to meet in Glasgow in November, there is an urgency to build on the aims of the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global warming.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating effect on Europe over the last 18 months, with a death toll fast approaching 1 million people and lockdowns that have hit businesses and economies across the region.

What if the house of the future could be built, dissasembled and rebuilt, as if it were made of LEGO? This is one of the solutions that experts in the building sector have imagined in order to fight climate change.

Approximately 8 million metric tons of plastic waste washes off land into the ocean each year. Bottle caps, toothbrushes, tiny plastic fragments, filaments, pellets, film and resin float about in the water columns.

Plastic products made of PVC, Polystyrene and other prominent plastics are flooding the market. They are a growing threat to the environment, as they are found in the sea or dumped in land fills .

Other regions in Europe are motivated by success stories like this one, and are now supported by a team of experts from ECOPOL to implement their new policies.

The Swedish environmental engineer Edward Soméus invented in the early ’80s a CO 2 free technology, abiding by the 3R principles: Recycle-Reduce-Reuse, to manufacture a natural fertiliser called biochar .

Bitumen, the sticky, gooey black stuff you sometimes see oozing out of hot road surfaces, is a valuable binding agent. Not only in road building. But also in construction and in the production of roofing materials.

Natural enzymes are very clever molecular machines. They are the catalyst for many of nature’s chemical transformations. And the conditions they need to perform their task are rather precisely defined.

Twenty five years ago, the German chemist Michael Braungart developed a new approach to recycling, now called "Cradle to Cradle" or "C2C" after the book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, which he and the American architect William McDonough published in 2002.

Clean freshwater faces various threats such as increasing demand by population growth, pollution and changes in the hydrological cycle due to climate change.

Going green is one of the fastest growing trends, particularly in industry. But smaller size companies are often left wondering how best to become more environmentally friendly .

The European fashion industry is a huge consumer of fresh water. Estimates point to 600 million cubic meter of fresh water being consumed yearly in Europe by the textile and clothing industry ; not a negligible amount.

More than one third of the total plastic production in Europe—about 14 million tonnes per year—are polyolefins, also known as polyalkenes.

Enamel cookware is ubiquitous. The trouble is that enamels —like other vitreous substances, or frits, used in making porcelain or ceramic glazes— are produced through a process generating highly toxic chemicals .

Vehicles seats are normally made of polyurethane foam, a thick material that is expensive to recycle and ends up in dumping sites or being incinerated.

How can policymakers change the way people think? This is what the InContext project, funded by the EU, hopes to answer. Leading European research institutions in the fields of transition, behaviour and sustainable development are trying to create a manual for change.

Tyres are well suited for recycling. They are easy to collect and do not require any costly sorting process.  However, in Europe, still only about 50% of the tyres are recycled .

Europe's tyre waste production is 3 million tonnes per year. Currently 65% to 70% of used tyres end up in landfills. Not only are they causing environmental damage, but a loss of added value in the form of new products that recycling can generate .