Europeans plug gaps in landfill laws

23 February 2007

The European Parliament has reached second gear in its long-term goal to curb waste when it adopted new framework legislation, proposed by the European Commission, last week.
MEPs are concerned that existing legislation on waste disposal and treatment is not enough, and want to halt the upward curve in waste production in 2012, and for it to decline by 2020. Currently, in some European Union member states, up to 90% of municipal waste goes to landfill sites, and only 33% of waste is recycled or composted throughout Europe. Members accepted a ‘hierarchy (in the treatment) of waste’, and a ‘thematic strategy’, which aim to reduce and prevent waste through different means.
The hierarchy lays down an order of preference for waste operations: reuse, recycling, other recovery operations and, as a last resort, safe and environmentally sound disposal. They also backed the energy efficiency principle by laying down a scale of standards to be met by incinerators. The thematic strategy aims to ban paper, glass, textiles, plastic and metal from landfill by 2015, and exclude all recyclable materials by 2020. MEPs also want EU member states to draw up national prevention programmes within 18 months of the entry-into-force Directive, with the aim of stabilising the level of waste production. The 27 EU environment ministers must now come up with a ‘common position’ in the co-decision procedure with the European Council, a parliament spokesman said. Once this was achieved, it returned to the European Parliament for a second reading.
‘It is impossible to tell when it will be finalised,’ he added. ‘If the council and parliament can reach an agreement on the final text before the end of 2007, the provisions of the Directive would come into effect late in 2009, just ahead of the new landfill targets set down in the EU Landfill Directive.’

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