Treating waste as a resource and the design of a circular economy have been identified as key approaches for resource efficiency. Despite ambitious targets, policies and instruments that would enable a transition from a conventional waste management to an integrated and comprehensive resource management are still missing. Moreover, this will require innovative policy mixes which do not only address different end-of-pipe approaches but integrate various resource efficiency aspects from product design to patterns of production and consumption.
Based on the results of the project "POLFREE - Policy Options for a resource efficient economy", the paper "From Waste Management to Resource Efficiency - The Need for Policy Mixes" by Wuppertal Institute's Henning Wilts, Nadja von Gries and Bettina Bahn-Walkowiak addresses several aspects of the conceptualisation of policy mixes with regard to waste as a specific resource efficiency challenge. The guiding research interest of this paper is the combination of policies necessary to create a full circular economy.
The paper was published in Sustainability and is available online at MDPI. You find more information on the project in the project description below.