Circular Trials and Wasted Errors

• Department of Law

PhD thesis defence by Dimitris Tsiatsianis

In recent years, there has been a flurry of EU policy promulgating the transition of EU to a Circular Economy (CE). An important prong of this transition is that waste is no longer a source of toxicity but also an exploitable source of raw materials. Every transition phase carries a degree of uncertainty and this is no different for the CE transition. The thesis situates uncertainties in two spheres, namely knowledge production about waste materials and the (dis)empowerment of a common market for waste recovery services. Firstly, scant knowledge about the intrinsic properties of waste materials obscures the assessment of hazardous chemicals emerging only during the waste phase and thus not anticipated in the product design phase. These chemicals may pass unnoticed into the composition of secondary materials, which thus suffer a competitive disadvantage next to virgin materials. Secondly, a critical precursor for a European CE is that waste be traded within the bloc for its recycling. The (un)certainty of this trade is contingent on common waste classification standards for shipped waste as well as on the goal to integrate the economic benefits of waste trade with the control of its transboundary pollution risks. To explore the potential of EU waste law towards greater epistemic and trade fitness in EU’s waste sector, this thesis constitutes the first study applying an Experimentalist Governance (EG) to the EU’s legal framework for waste. EG holds that both spheres of uncertainty should be acknowledged in terms of common regulatory goals and addressed under conditions of broad actor participation, transparency and coordination. The thesis finds that, in doctrinal terms, the epistemic and trade fitness of EU waste law is low, despite the recent commitment of EU waste law to a CE.

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