The consultation, which will run until September 4, seeks to ‘obtain a better understanding of the nature and extent of regulatory failures causing undue distortions to waste markets’.
According to the EU Commission: “According to existing rules, waste to be prepared for re-use, recycled or subject to other recovery activities should move freely within the EU, without any unjustified restrictions. In some cases, however, the regulatory environment may hamper the efficient functioning of waste markets and fail to ensure optimal implementation of the waste hierarchy.
“Such regulatory failures may result from policy and legislative actions taken at EU, national, regional or local levels. Some may arise in connection with the application and interpretation of EU legal requirements or the Waste Shipment Regulation; others may be the result of national, regional or local rules and requirements which are not directly linked to EU legislation.”
Circular Economy
A separate consultation on plans to broaden the scope of existing waste legislation to focus on ‘other areas’ of the circular economy was launched at the end of May (see letsrecycle.com story), and is due to run until August. Both consultations will feed into the Commission’s new circular economy package, which is due to be presented at the end of 2015.
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The launch of the consultation comes as president of the European Federation of Waste Management and Environmental Services (FEAD), Suez UK chief executive David Palmer Jones, has criticised ‘increasing public sector activity’ in recycling markets in ‘several’ Member States.
In an editorial piece published by FEAD today (June 15) Mr Palmer Jones said that a competitive private sector can deliver better outcomes from taxpayers than public sector activity in the recycling market.
Private Sector
Mr Palmer-Jones also outlined four recommendations to help deliver a circular economy, which include:
- opening household waste markets to private firms;
- limiting legal responsibility for municipalities to collect household waste only;
- a requirement for Member States not to attach specific public service obligations to waste management services;
- clear regulations for municipalities operating in the household and commercial waste markets.
In the piece, Mr Palmer-Jones writes: “The waste and resource management companies provide services to the households and businesses which generate waste and also act as raw material and energy suppliers to industry. For the private sector to deliver these services and make the necessary long term investments for a circular economy, they need legal certainty and fair competition rules ensuring that the household waste market is opened up for increased competition.”
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