The revision is currently being circulated within the European Commission (EC) and a copy obtained by letsrecycle.com confirms that a number of changes are likely to be made to the Directive which has shaped all European Union waste legislation.
The environmental objective comes into the proposed revised Directive which is likely to be published next month alongside the Thematic Strategy on Waste Prevention and Recycling (see letsrecycle.com story)
Environmental
Explaining its thinking, in a memorandum to the revision, the EC says that most of the significant waste management operations are now covered by environmental legislation. The revision documents says: “It is important that the Waste Framework Directive is adapted to this approach. This requires a number of changes. The most significant is the introduction of an environmental objective.” It then adds that this mean a life-cycle approach taking into account the whole life-cycle.”
Crucial changes to the framework directive will see areas of legal uncertainty tackled with revised and clearer definitions. The fundamental definition of waste, linking it to material that has been discarded, will not change.
But, a revised definition of recovery now says that this means “operations that result in the waste serving a useful purpose in replacing other resources, whether in the plant or in the wider economy, which would have been used to fulfil that function, or prepare waste for such a use.”
Energy recovery
This is important because of European Court of Justice rulings that burning waste in an energy from waste plant does not count as energy recovery because the plant is designed to dispose of waste. In contrast the court had found that cement kilns, for example, are recovering energy by burning waste because they exist to make cement rather than disposing of waste.
The revised directive will also see the directive on the disposal of waste oils repealed and that priority given for waste oils regeneration abolished.
The full proposal for a revised directive is expected to be published by the Commission at the end of November.
Register for free to comment