Waste management is a topical issue worldwide. In recent years several requests have been made
by citizens and associations to political decision-makers regarding the need for a significant
improvement in waste management methods. Particularly considering the significant increase in
awareness of social and environmental impacts and the economic consequences of non-virtuous
waste management. There is growing attention on legislation and regulation's role in the waste
sector. Regulation can help companies and citizens achieve a faster more effective and more
efficient transition from a linear economy based on the take-make-dispose paradigm to a
circular economy in which the potential of waste as resources and secondary raw materials is
exploited.This book is set in the wake of economic literature that tackles the transition from
the linear to the circular economy. It focuses on the downstream stages of the waste management
process (i.e. the waste treatment phase). In this regard it is proposed a journey through the
history of European waste legislation to study the waste sector's transition dynamics from a
selfish and no longer sustainable economic model based on rampant consumerism to a far-sighted
sustainable model addressing the well-being of future generations. Studying the changes in
European waste regulations leads us to ask ourselves the following questions: how has waste
collection changed in recent years? What are the new regulatory challenges that must be
addressed to achieve the objectives of a circular economy? How successful has the EU
legislation been in fostering the transition from a linear to a circular economy? Finally has
the European environmental legislation sprung a convergence process among European countries
towards the circular economy or has the definition of targets fuelled the already marked
differences between EU countries?
