The enabling environment and finance of resource recovery and reuse 1

This chapter addresses four groups of key factors of the enabling environment for resource recovery and reuse (RRR). They are policies, regulations, and guidelines; finance and financial incentives; technologies matching resource constraints; local capacities and stakeholder acceptance. One of the most influential legal drivers of RRR in Europe was the establishment of the Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC), which defines landfills as the last option for waste treatment and disposal. Since the 1990s and early 2000s, carbon markets have been a supplementary source of income for those RRR projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Depending on the nature and size of the RRR project, private partners can range from local enterprises to international companies. Smaller enterprises are more common in the bio-energy and waste-to-compost sectors than in wastewater treatment and often struggle with low credit history, limited capacity to present a bankable project and to realize the right mix of debt and equity investment.