When we throw a plastic bottle in the right waste container, we feel virtuous because we have done our part for the environment. However, we cannot imagine the huge effort that will be needed to ensure that our bottle is effectively recycled.

“If I just look at my courtyard , three of my neighbors have an electric car" , says Christian Patermann, long-time program director at the European Commission and now internationally known as the “father of the bioeconomy”.

In his song ‘ Concrete Jungle ’, the reggae legend Bob Marley sang wistfully about being trapped in a dense and oppressive urban environment ‘where the living is hardest’, all the while longing for the ‘sweet life’.

What do cucumber, almonds, onions and avocados have in common? Besides being potential ingredients for your next salad, all those plants need pollinators to reproduce : animals that move pollen from the male part of the flower to the female one.

As part of the Green Deal presented by the EU Commission last year, the bloc now proposes raising emissions-reduction targets to 55% of 1990 levels, with a 40% cut in greenhouse gases over the same period.

Would you enjoy a city full of parks, where streets were tree-lined, where cycling and walking were pleasant, a city with grass-insulated roofs on houses and public buildings to keep you warm in winter? According to a Eurobarometer study , there is an 84 per cent chance that your answer is yes.

Urban green spaces provide several benefits beyond aesthetics. They offer shade, help to reduce pollution, offer habitat for birds and insects, a space to meet and socialise or for kids to play.

In January 2005, a severe storm swept across Northern Europe, from Ireland to Russia. More than 500,000 homes were left without power, with Denmark and Southern Sweden being particularly hard-hit.

Bioenergy represents two-thirds of the energy produced from renewable sources in Europe, though biomass sustainability is not taken for granted.

Anthropogenic emissions have, until now, been collected, but not harmonised . These consist, for example, of data of nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, smog, methane, CO 2 and even pollen and dust produced, among others by heavy industry and power plants.

Poor air quality costs Europe more than €700 million per year, in health expenditures and loss of economic performance, according to official EU sources.

Each year, the European Union produces three billion tonnes of waste. This equates to six tonnes of solid waste for every EU citizen, according to Eurostat. A major challenge is findings ways to reduce and reuse a large amount of such waste .

Renewable energy sources play an important role in securing future energy supply and mitigating climate change.

News of increased desertification has made headlines. Yet this process is not well understood.

When a coastal area is about to be hit by the waves of a tsunami, time is everything. The earlier we know where and when it is going to hit the coast, the more chances there are to evacuate the area.

Going green is one of the fastest growing trends, particularly in industry. But smaller size companies are often left wondering how best to become more environmentally friendly .

Vehicles seats are normally made of polyurethane foam, a thick material that is expensive to recycle and ends up in dumping sites or being incinerated.

Dealing with sludge is one of the biggest issues of waste water treatment.

Tyres are well suited for recycling. They are easy to collect and do not require any costly sorting process.  However, in Europe, still only about 50% of the tyres are recycled .

Gara Villalba, who is a chemical engineer and a professor at the institute of environmental science and technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona , has tracked the flows of materials to see how recycling rates could be improved.