Climate protection potential of the recycling economy

Securing the supply of raw materials, climate protection, the energy transition – the recycling economy plays a role in the key challenges of our time. Since 1990, the recycling economy has already saved the equivalent of around 100 million tonnes of CO_² thus making a significant contribution to protecting the climate.

For the 2030 climate targets to be reached efforts will have to be significantly increased. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) commissioned a consortium made up of ifeu, the Öko-Institut and Prognos with conducting an expert report on the calculation of the further climate protection potential of the recycling economy. 

Measures for more effective climate protection

According to our estimates, up to the year 2030 and beyond, the recycling economy has the potential to avoid the equivalent of up to 75 million tonnes of additional CO_². For this to be possible, a series of measures will have to be implemented that can be broken down into framework measures and process or material flow-related measures:

• The framework measures for avoiding greenhouse gases are linked to the following three categories:  
  • Construction and housing: e. g., supporting housing efficiency, supporting maintenance, refurbishing old buildings rather than undertaking new construction
  • Consumers: e. g., the extension and support of car sharing and public people transportation, separation of recyclable materials, replacing plastics with paper
  • Industry and trade: e. g., increasing the life span of electric and electronic devices, use of scrap for steel production
• The recycling economy can implement process related measures for the reduction of CO_² when recycling materials: important saving potential remains, for example, through the emission-free powering of collection vehicles or the use of disused locations for PV systems.
• It is the measures linked to individual material streams such as organic waste, old vehicles, batteries, textiles or packaging where there is the largest climate protection potential:
  • the collection and use of ferrous metals and non-ferrous metals (aluminium, copper, nickel etc.) as well as
  • the exploitation of plastic packaging as well as building and demolition waste.

There are many actors responsible for the implementation of these measures and only some of them come directly from the recycling economy. Federal ministries, professional organisations, businesses and citizens will therefore need to work in close collaboration to ensure the successful implementation of these climate change measures to maximise their potential.

Our approach

The study focuses primarily on the climate protection potential of the recycling economy in terms of material streams. To this end, we analysed the impact of the full recycling of the relevant material streams in terms of additional recycling and reuse rates. The analyses and calculations were based on the investigations of the project partner for the recycling economy and the circular economy. 

Links and downloads

To the study (PDF in German)

Project team: Patrick Bechhaus, Dr Bärbel Birnstengel, Dr Jochen Hoffmeister, Heike Winter-Hamerla

Latest update: 25.10.2024