EVA AVP

The waste hierarchy of the German Circular Economy Act stipulates that waste should primarily be prevented or prepared for reuse. The legal requirements for the waste hierarchy are also derived from European law and from the federal state legislation on the circular economy. Looking at the development of waste volumes in recent years, waste prevention has not yet been sufficiently successful: The Federal Statistical Office reported a record 40.2 million tonnes of household waste for 2021, an increase of 1.5 per cent on the previous year. At the same time, the total (net) volume of waste has fallen by around 12 per cent over the last twenty years, however mainly due to a decline in construction and demolition waste.

The aim of the project is to analyse and evaluate the implementation status of the WPP at federal, state and local authority level as well as the audit assignments it contains. On this basis and taking further into account previously unaddressed waste prevention potential, also from other strategies, programmes and countries, proposals for the further development of the WPP will be made and strategic recommendations for action developed which strengthen the scope of the programme and promote the further implementation process.

The project comprises five work packages:

• Evaluation of the implementation status of WP measures (INTECUS/Wuppertal Institute)
• Review of relevant legal standards and strategic European and national objectives for waste prevention (INTECUS/Wuppertal Institute)
• Identification of existing unexploited WP potentials and development of recommendations for action to implement the WPP (Wuppertal Institute/IÖW)
• Creation of a brochure on waste prevention (Media Company/Wuppertal Institute))
• Support for the next update of the WPP (optional service) (Wuppertal Institute)