Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

European environment policy for the circular economy: Implications for business and industry stakeholders

This review evaluates recent European Union circular economy policies and their implications for businesses seeking to reduce environmental impact through sustainable production and supply chain practices. It identifies both opportunities and challenges for companies attempting to implement circular economy principles in compliance with new EU environmental directives.

2020 Sustainable Development 210 citations
Article Tier 2

Reconciling Waste Management and Ecological Economics

Researchers examined how the concept of the "circular economy" — designing products and systems to minimize waste — fits within ecological economics, which emphasizes physical limits like energy and material flows. The chapter argues that effective waste management policies, such as landfill taxes, extended producer responsibility, and deposit-refund schemes, must align environmental costs with economic incentives to achieve meaningful sustainability gains.

2023 Studies in ecological economics 1 citations
Article Tier 2

The Circular Economy in EU Policy as a Response to Contemporary Ecological Challenges

This article reviews how EU countries are implementing circular economy policies and progress toward reducing plastic waste, finding large variation across member states. Shifting from linear to circular plastic economies is critical for reducing the production of waste that generates microplastics.

2019 Gospodarka Narodowa 12 citations
Article Tier 2

Atık ve çevresel adalet : Avrupa Birliği döngüsel ekonomi politikası örneği

This thesis critically analyzes the EU circular economy policy through an environmental justice perspective, examining how power asymmetries between EU member states affect the distribution of waste management burdens. The study finds that EU circular economy solutions focus predominantly on economic outcomes while neglecting justice implications of transboundary waste transfers.

2024 Marmara University Open Access System
Article Tier 2

Circular economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This paper examines the concept and implementation of the circular economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina as an alternative to the linear economic model, analyzing how efficient resource use, recycling, and reuse can reduce environmental impacts and create competitive advantage for the country.

2023 Journal of Ekonomi 3 citations
Article Tier 2

A Circular Economy: Where Will It Take Us?

This review critically examines the circular economy — a model that aims to eliminate waste by keeping materials in use — questioning whether it reliably delivers environmental and social benefits. The author argues that while circular economy approaches can be good for business, definitive evidence that they reduce resource extraction and improve social equity is still lacking.

2021 Circular Economy and Sustainability 44 citations
Article Tier 2

Socio-economic Importance of Biomaterials in the Transition to the Circular Economy Model

Researchers examined the socio-economic role of biomaterials in transitioning economies toward the circular economy model, finding that substituting conventional plastics with bio-based materials can reduce waste accumulation while meeting EU sustainable development targets for 2030.

2021 SHS Web of Conferences 5 citations
Article Tier 2

Global Plastic Pollution and the Transition Towards a Circular Economy: Lessons from the EU’s Legal Framework on Plastics

This paper reviews the EU legal framework on plastics and the transition toward a circular economy, examining how regulatory instruments including the Single-Use Plastics Directive and extended producer responsibility schemes can reduce the billions of tons of plastic waste generated annually.

2024 Environmental Policy and Law 5 citations
Article Tier 2

Combining industrial ecology tools to assess potential greenhouse gas reductions of a circular economy: Method development and application to Switzerland

Researchers developed a framework combining multiple environmental analysis methods to assess how circular economy strategies — like plastic recycling, food waste reduction, and carbon capture — could cut Switzerland's greenhouse gas emissions by up to 14% by 2050.

2022 Journal of Industrial Ecology 33 citations
Article Tier 2

Are Soft Legal Measures in Circular Economy Action Plans Enough to Permeate EU Strong Economic Core Regulations Bringing Systemic Sustainable Change?

Researchers conducted a legal analysis of the European Union's 2015 and 2020 Circular Economy Action Plans, examining whether these policy frameworks are designed to drive genuine systemic change or are constrained by market-oriented economic principles. The study finds that most measures rely on soft, voluntary approaches that may not be strong enough to overcome the EU's core economic regulations prioritizing growth over sustainability.

2022 Circular Economy and Sustainability 4 citations
Article Tier 2

A systematic analysis of European markers of balanced environmental management under the conditions of economic circularity

Researchers analyzed European environmental management markers under circular economy conditions, examining environmental pollution indicators including microplastics and proposing an iron oxide-based technological method for treating wastewater contaminated with estrogens, microplastics, and oil.

2024 Agroecological journal
Article Tier 2

Circular Economy and Waste in the Fashion Industry

This review analyses existing EU legislative measures relevant to sustainability and circular economy transitions in the fashion industry, a sector associated with high water and energy consumption, chemical pollution, and microplastic generation from textiles. The authors evaluate the EU Circular Economy Action Plan of 2015 and its revised waste framework as tools for driving systemic change in fashion industry practices.

2019 Laws 129 citations
Article Tier 2

An Overview of the Transition to a Circular Economy in Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy Considering Technological, Legal–Regulatory and Financial Points of View: A Case Study

This study analyses the transition to a circular economy in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, which enacted the country's first regional circular economy law and launched multiple pioneering projects, providing a model for evidence-based regional policy innovation.

2021 Sustainability 33 citations
Article Tier 2

European Circular Economy Policy-Making in Sustainability and Resource Management Development

This study analyzed the development of circular economy policy across EU countries using circularity indicators, finding that high circularity scores do not necessarily correlate with lower environmental impact. The EU as a whole consumes the majority of global materials and generates 43% of emissions, highlighting gaps between circularity metrics and actual sustainability.

2024 International Journal of Mathematical Engineering and Management Sciences 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Towards a Just Circular Economy Transition: the Case of European Plastic Waste Trade to Vietnam for Recycling

Researchers examined how half of Europe's collected plastic waste is shipped to countries like Vietnam for recycling without adequate oversight, arguing that this practice shifts environmental and health burdens to lower-income nations and calling for a justice-focused global framework to govern plastic waste trade.

2024 Circular Economy and Sustainability 30 citations
Article Tier 2

Creating a circular healthcare economy

This paper examines the concept of creating a circular healthcare economy to address the environmental impact of the healthcare sector. The study suggests that transitioning from a linear to a circular model in healthcare could help reduce waste generation, carbon emissions, and resource consumption while maintaining quality of care.

2023 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Concretising the role of extended producer responsibility in European Union waste law and policy through the lens of the circular economy

This review examines the evolution of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) within European Union waste law and policy, analyzing how EPR instruments can be strengthened to drive more effective plastic waste prevention and recycling across the product lifecycle. The authors argue for more ambitious, harmonized EPR frameworks to reduce plastic pollution at its source.

2020 ERA Forum 95 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastic Tax and Circular Economy Incentives to Tackle Climate Change (indonesian Context)

This paper examines how a plastic excise tax, modeled on international examples, could reduce single-use plastic consumption in Indonesia while generating government revenue and supporting circular economy goals. It argues that fiscal policy is an underused tool for tackling plastic pollution and its contribution to climate change. While this is a policy paper rather than an ecotoxicology study, it is relevant to the broader question of how societies reduce the plastic waste that ultimately becomes environmental microplastic contamination.

2023 Jurnal BPPK Badan Pendidikan dan Pelatihan Keuangan
Article Tier 2

The Effect of Innovation on Plastic Packaging Waste Generation in the European Union: Does Economic Growth Matter?

Researchers analyzed panel data from 27 EU countries over 2014–2023 and found that innovation reduces plastic packaging waste generation, and that economic growth amplifies this effect, though the relationship varies between high- and low-waste economies, pointing to the value of combining innovation policy with circular economy strategies.

2026
Article Tier 2

The rate of use of the Circular Economy in individual sectors

Not relevant to microplastics — this paper reviews the adoption of circular economy principles across industrial sectors within the European Union policy framework, without specific focus on plastic pollution.

2023 Acta Montanistica Slovaca 8 citations
Article Tier 2

Rethinking plastic recycling: A comparison between North America and Europe

Researchers compared plastic recycling rates and infrastructure between North America and the European Union, arguing that higher EU landfill and incineration costs create economic incentives for recycling that have driven greater industrial innovation and cleaner polymer streams — while both regions continue to rely on opaque offshore export as a de facto disposal method.

2023 Journal of Environmental Management 26 citations
Article Tier 2

A critical review on sustainable hazardous waste management strategies: a step towards a circular economy

Researchers review global strategies for managing hazardous industrial and household waste — including chemicals, heavy metals, and electronic waste — with a focus on aligning disposal practices with circular economy principles that minimize environmental and health harm. The review finds that prevention, recycling, and advanced treatment technologies must work together, guided by stronger international policy frameworks.

2023 Environmental Science and Pollution Research 74 citations
Article Tier 2

Transformation of Municipal Waste Management in Poland Towards a Circular Economy

Researchers examined the transformation of municipal waste management in Poland following EU accession, tracing the shift from landfill-dominated disposal toward selective collection and circular economy frameworks, and identifying remaining structural challenges in achieving closed-loop waste management.

2023 Rocznik Ochrona Środowiska 5 citations
Article Tier 2

Current Status of Circular Economy Research in Finland

This review surveys the state of circular economy research in Finland, covering academic, policy, and industry perspectives on transitioning away from the linear 'take-make-dispose' model. Circular economy principles are increasingly relevant to addressing plastic waste and microplastic pollution.

2021 Resources 24 citations