Jorge Marx Gómez is professor and chair of business information systems at the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg , Germany. He was the scientific manager of the EU-funded project OEPI , completed in 2012.

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.

Food processing of cereal and fruits creates a rather voluminous amount of by-products . The London, UK-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers recently estimated that anywhere between 35% and 50%--or 1.

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 .

Gara Villalba, who is a chemical engineer and a professor at the institute of environmental science and technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona , has tracked the flows of materials to see how recycling rates could be improved.

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 .

Designing environment-friendly compostable food packaging is the challenge that Daniel Ribera, the coordinator of the EC-funded Ecopack , tells youris.com about.

Potatoes, oranges, onions and shellfish; all are packaged in flexible and sometimes colourful nets. These are mainly made of polyethylene, the most common plastic. The problem is its biodegradability is low.

Eco-innovation is at its best when the waste of one industry becomes the raw material of another. This is precisely what the EU funded research project CAPS, is attempting to do with waste sludge from the paper industry .

More than 3.3 million tonnes of used tyres were disposed in landfills in 2010, according to the European tyre & rubber manufacturers’ association.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are set to become an important material for the future. That’s because they are light, robust, and highly conductive, both electrically and thermally whilst still being chemically stable.

By 2030, two planets might not be sufficient to sustain human activities. Estimates suggest that we are currently using resources equivalent of 1.5 planets . And the trend is going upwards.

Non-ferrous metals are increasingly in demand because of the electronics industry. "They are used in LED’s, computers, smartphones; this is a much bigger business now," says Kate Hornsby , Waste in Social Environment manager at the Technical University Aachen , Germany.

Recycling is now an important part of our economy. Today not only is recycling an important source of material for the production of consumer goods, but it also protects the environment and can save energy.

In Europe more than 12 million tonnes of mixed plastic waste are dumped on landfills every year, according to a report from NUMIX scientists. The recycling of plastic into usable products has proven difficult .