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European Economic and Social Committee

REX
Brussels, 24 October 2008
4thEU-China Round Table
Making Europe a Recycling Society: A new policy approach
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Rapporteur: Ernst Erik Ehnmark
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REX - CESE 1651/2008 EN/o

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1.Introduction

“Waste volume has been disproportionately increasing, outpacing even economic growth. Waste generation, disposal and recycling are of concern to all of us: individuals, companies and public authorities. Now is the time to modernise our approach and promote more and better recycling, our strategy does precisely that”.

With these words of confidence in a new package of proposals, EU Commissioner Stavros Dimas signalled in 2006 the need for launching integrated and cross-sectoral solutions for a more efficient recycling and disposal. The new directive on waste (Directive 2006/12EC) provided the regulatory framework for such solutions.

As a first step, the Commission proposed to set up recycling standards and to include an obligation for Member States to develop national waste prevention programmes. The waste and resources strategies are two of the seven “thematic” strategies required under the 6th Environment Action Programme (2002–2012). In this way, the new strategy on waste is or will be firmly integrated in the environmental action programme.

The need for an integrated strategy on waste can be illustrated by a couple of figures. Waste generation in EU is estimated at more than 1.4 billion tones per year, and is increasing at rates comparable to economic growth. As an example, both GNP and municipal waste grew by 19% between 1995 and 2003.

One consequence of this growth is that the amount of landfill –the environmentally most problematic way to get rid of waste – is reducing but at a too low rate.

2.Objectives of the new strategy

The aim of the strategy is to reduce the negative impact on the environment that is caused by waste throughout its life-span, from production to disposal, via recycling. This means that every item of waste is seen not only as a source of pollution to be reduced, but also as a potential resource to be exploited. Adding to this, the previous legislation on waste within the EU is still valid, namely limiting waste and promoting the re-use, recycling and recovery of waste.

The new strategy aims at simplifying present legislation. The way to achieve that is to merge previous legislation on hazardous waste and the waste oil directives.

One point in this context is to formulate a new definition of recovery and disposal activities – and thereby also determining criteria concerning when waste is no longer waste.

The new directive does not include a target figure for the amount of waste produced. The Commission argues that it is not meaningful to set up targets when the implementation is so difficult to measure.

3.The road to the new legislation

On 5 April 2006, Directive 75/442/EEC on waste has been codified which led to the Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2006/12/EC).

On issues related to recycling, Directive 2006/12/EC stipulates that:

  • "The recovery of waste and the use of recovered materials as raw materials should be encouraged in order to conserve natural resources. It may be necessary to adopt specific rules for re-usable waste."
  • "In order to achieve a high level of environmental protection, Member States should, in addition to taking responsible action to ensure the disposal and recovery of waste, take measures to restrict the production of waste particularly by promoting clean technologies and products which can be recycled and re-used, taking into consideration existing or potential market opportunities for recovered waste."
  • "To ensure a high level of protection and effective control, it is necessary to provide for authorisation and inspection of undertakings which carry out waste disposal and recovery."
  • "Subject to certain conditions, and provided that they comply with environmental protection requirements, some establishments which process their waste themselves or carry out waste recovery may be exempted from permit requirements. Such establishments should be subject to registration."
  • "Member States shall take appropriate measures to encourage the recovery of waste by means of recycling, re-use or reclamation or any other process with a view to extracting secondary raw materials." (Article 3)
  • "Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that waste is recovered or disposed of without endangering human health and without using processes or methods which could harm the environment, and in particular: (a) without risk to water, air or soil, or to plants or animals; (b)without causing a nuisance through noise or odours; (c) without adversely affecting the countryside or places of special interest." (Article 4)

4.The new approach in implementation

The main focus of the strategy for preventing waste production is on reducing the environmental impact of waste and products that will become waste. In order to be effective, this impact must be reduced at every stage of a resource's lifespan.

Under the new legislation, Member States are required to develop programmes to prevent waste production. These programmes should include specific prevention targets to be implemented at the most appropriate level and which must be made public.

This last point illustrates the policy of the Commission to involve actively consumers and stake-holders in the implementation.

Recycling targets could be set up at appropriate levels and taking account of the characteristics of each material.

The strategy provides also for other measures; such as the exchange of information on national disposal taxes as well as eventual measures which would supplement the market mechanisms should these prove inadequate in increasing recycling levels. Market mechanisms should as far as possible take care of the implementation.

The strategy places particular emphasis on biodegradable waste, two-thirds of which must be redirected to be disposed of using methods other than landfill.

The new legislation will be tested by way of the national implementation reports that each Member State is required to produce.

The challenges meeting the new legislation are illustrated by the fact that at present, 49% of EU municipal waste is disposed of through landfill, 18% is incinerated and 33 percent is recycled or composted. It deserves to be repeated that using waste for landfill is the most problematic method with real risks for the environment

The amount of landfill has not decreased in recent years, because waste production as a whole continues to increase. What is more, some substances are particularly dangerous and polluting and pose serious risks to the environment and health; having been used and the waste disposed of means that such substances remain in landfill over long periods.

5.The EESC and the new waste legislation

The EESC has taken a high profile in analysing and commenting upon Commission proposals in the wide area of sustainable development. The proposals on waste were carefully considered, and a working party was set up for the analytical work.

On 5 July 2006, the EESC published an opinion on the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on waste COM(2005) 667 final. The rapporteur was MrBuffetaut. At its 428th plenary session, held on 5 and 6 July 2006, the EESC adopted this opinion with a large majority – which was important with regard to the need for broad support from both social partners and organised civil society. Here are the main opinions of the document on issues related to recycling:

  • The EESC does not agree with the Commission on the point "that relaxing the procedures for obtaining permits to run processing installations will encourage recycling. This approach is misguided and will result in negative environmental consequences and health risks. Furthermore, it does not comply with the principles of the Aarhus Convention regarding public access to information on waste."
  • "The EESC considers that too absolute an affirmation of the desire to respect the principle of subsidiarity runs the risk of being in contradiction with the desire to have legislation which is applied on a general and harmonised basis throughout the EU."
  • "The EESC stresses that the type of recycling which should be encouraged is that which does not have a damaging impact on the environment and which really does make it possible to reclaim materials."
  • "In the EESC's view, a number of definitions continue to give rise to uncertainty (such as the definitions of 'producer' and 'recovery'). Definitions should be provided in the case of the following terms: 'reclamation of materials' leading to the 'recycling of materials', on the one hand (with the possibility for certain flows to be no longer classified as waste), and 'energy recovery', on the other hand (without the possibility of no longer being classified as waste)."
  • "The EESC strongly regrets that no proposals are made with regard to the introduction of standardised financial instruments throughout the EU."
  • "The EESC deplores the fact that the proposal for a Directive fails to set out any obligations in respect of working conditions and health protection measures for employees in this sector."

(Here, we should however (later!) try to get some information about how the Commission reacted to our proposals and comments. The Commission produces every three month period a summary of how the Commission has taken regard of EESC opinions. Perhaps we could find the relevant paper concerning waste?)

6.Some comparisons between Member States

EU-wide statistics on waste treatment are available only for municipal waste, which represents about 14% of total waste produced. There are big differences between Member States. Ireland produced in 2006 804 kg per capital of municipal waste, followed by Cyprus and Denmark with more than 730 kg per capita. Poland produced only 259 kg per capital of municipal waste (which is about 50% of the EU average).

The appended pages on statistics illustrate the differences.

Recycling of packaging waste reached the level of 5 percent in 2005. This figure was higher than the target for year 2008!

As to the differences between countries, it can be noted that the figures for recycling of packaging waste were highest in Belgium and Germany, reaching the level of over 68% in the year 2006.

A few Member States showed a decline, for example Cyprus, 11 kg per person, and Sweden, with 12kg per person.

The appended statistic survey provides more information.

Pressure Indicator: Municipal Waste Generated (kg per person)

Data source: Eurostat

Waste generation and management are strongly linked to the way we use natural resources. While excessive waste generation can be seen as a symptom of inefficient use of resources, recovering materials and energy embedded in waste can help to use resources in a better way.

The EU aims at reducing the overall environmental impacts associated with the use of resources, by decreasing the amount of waste generated and by increasing the share of waste which is recycled and recovered, i.e. re-entering the economic productive cycle. The EU target to reduce municipal waste generation to 300 kg/capita by the year 2000 was not achieved. No new quantitative targets have been set.

EU-wide statistics on waste treatment are available only for municipal waste[1], which represents about 14% of total waste produced. In 2006 EU-27 produced 517 kg of municipal waste per person, while EU-15 produced on average 563 kg of municipal waste per person. In total in 2006, 255 millions tons of municipal wastes were generated in EU-27, 41% of which were land-filled and 19% were incinerated.

There are big differences among Member States, Ireland producing 804 kg/capita of municipal waste, followed by Cyprus and Denmark with more than 730 kg/capita. Poland produced only 259 kg/capita of municipal waste (50% of the EU-27 average), and Slovakia and Czech Republic about 300kg/capita.

The generation of municipal waste per capita in Western European countries has stabilised, even if at very high levels. Some countries showed a constant increase of about 10% from 2004 to 2006, i.e. Romania and Slovakia, while other countries decreased the amount of municipal waste/capita by 4% or more during 2004-2006, i.e. Bulgaria and Spain. The big increase for Latvia in 2006 is due to an improved reporting system.

Response Indicator: Recycling of Packaging Waste (percentage)

Source: European Commission, DG Environment, Mandatory reporting by Member States under Commission Decisions 97/138/EC and 2005/270/EC; EU data for 2004 refers to EU25; Slovakia has not sent data for 2005; Malta has not reported any data.

Recycling helps to manage natural resources more responsibly: on the one hand it saves material from being put in landfills or incinerators; on the other hand, by replacing virgin materials, recycling can reduce environmental impacts. Packaging waste is roughly 5% of total waste generation.

In 2005, 55% of packaging waste was recycled in the EU-27, thus already reaching the 2008 target. In particular 73.5% of packaging waste in paper and board was recycled, while only 24.8% of plastic packaging waste was recycled. Different performances of individual Member States suggest further potential for improvements: Belgium and Germany continue to be the countries which perform best with more than 68% of recycling, while a few countries (Cyprus, Romania and Poland) still recycle less than 30% of their packaging waste.

Not only levels but also trends are different for the 2003-2005 period: most Member States increasing their recycling rate, in particular Slovenia by 11 percentage points (pp) (from 34% to 45%) while others show a decline, in particular Cyprus by 11 pp and Sweden by 12 pp.

There is a general increase per capita in quantities of packaging being put on the market, which is not in line with the objective of the Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste, which aims at preventing the production of packaging waste.

Source: Commission staff working document accompanying the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament. "2007 Environment Policy Review" {COM(2008) 409 final}

7.Raising the awareness of the challenges ahead

The directive on waste will require active and sustained support not only from institutions and organizations, but also and above all from citizens and from communities. The positive results concerning packaging waste can be seen as an example of how active citizen support can make a difference in implementing the waste directive objectives.

The Commission arranged in 2007 a series of awareness raising events. In the time ahead, it will no doubt be essential with information and awareness-increasing events in support of the waste strategy.

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REX - CESE 1651/2008 EN/o

[1]Municipal waste consists of waste collected by or on behalf of municipal authorities. The bulk of this waste stream is from households, though similar wastes from sources such as commerce, offices and public institutions are included.