Results

The report on Mapping is the first significant output of the project. It was published in June 2018 and contains about fifty pages of thorough analysis based on a questionnaire that was launched at the beginning of the project. The report was also sent to the European Commission for evaluation. 

The questionnaire evaluated several management aspects of each region’s policies: 

• Governance and organisational aspects 
• Available landfill information and data 
• Current regulations on landfill management 
• Landfill management and funding 
• Landfill mining activities and related policy issues 

A brief excerpt of the conclusions made by the COCOON team: 

• The information on closed landfills is not at the same level as that on operational landfills. 
• The current knowledge of closed landfills is unsatisfactory. Experience shows that the introduction of modern waste management is not possible if further use of officially closed landfills isn’t consistently prevented and the closed landfills aren’t remediated. 
• The focus of existing legislation very often only includes management, and not mining. A change of mindset is needed to achieve a circular economy by 2030. 

The partners will use this report as a blueprint for changing, improving and creating policies at national level, but this report also contains valuable lessons for consideration at EU level.  

The project partners have created a Good Practice Handbook, within the COCOON project. It includes over 50 good practices that were identified during the course of the project. This handbook contains good practices learned from projects that contribute to the safe and effective management of waste. The practices cover a broad range of topics, among others waste reduction, landfill design, policy, economics and aftercare.