In more than a figurative sense, the European Parliament (EP) is paying lip service to the European Commission’s circular economy proposals. Having seen their plans for a 75% packaging waste recycling quota by 2025 watered down to 65%, the legislators have taken it upon themselves to banish plastic bottles from most meetings and, from July 2019, also to do without the estimated 1m such bottles in circulation annually at parliamentary events in Brussels and Strasbourg.

As a first step in the new circular strategy, 166 drinking water fountains have been installed at the parliament’s two locations. “EP will lead by example,” declared MEP Heidi Hautala, a Finnish ecologist. Much speaks for this reverse of worldwide tradition, in which a legislative body has become a mouthpiece for creative change, though more creativity will be needed to tackle remaining challenges. Apart from how to start meetings on time while queues back up at the fountains, who will teach delegates from colder countries how to use them? Most importantly, does the EP realise that water from the fountains must not be circular, and by no means be recycled?