The proposals come in a second draft working document on the “biological treatment of biowaste” from the European Commission’s Directorate General for the Environment which recommends recycling and composting to reduce the amount of any residual waste.
The new draft is now out for consultation and follows on from an earlier one published last autumn. It is widely seen as a prelude to a possible composting directive, although the EU has still to decide whether or not one is needed.
The wording of the draft document confirms a continuing trend against incineration and a move to encouraging more recycling and composting in policies produced by the Environment DG.
The new draft emphasises that recycling and composting of materials from household should be carried out. Importantly though, it goes one step further than an earlier draft published last year in considering options for residual material which it says could be landfilled as long as it met certain criteria. This is seen as weakening the argument that after recycling there will always be residual waste left over which should be incinerated because the EU is trying to crack down on landfill.
In the latest draft
under the heading “Residual municipal waste” the Directorate General says that the amount and contamination of residual municipal waste should be reduced to the minimum extent possible “via the separate collection of municipal waste fractions such as biowaste, packaging, paper and cardboard, glass, metals and hazardous waste.”
It then gives a scientific calculation for the state of the remaining residual waste if it goes through a mechanical/biological treatment.
Luca Marmo, the directorate general’s biowaste chief told letsrecycle: “We would like to offer the possibility to local authorities to have mechanical treatment option and give a signal that there are alternatives to incineration.”
He explained that the residual material would have to be stabilised to “a certain degree” possibly by mixing it with some shredded paper and plastic.
But he emphasised that currently the working document should be seen as “throwing a stone into the pond” as the Environment DG is looking for comment and input from all sectors to its proposals.
The document also confirms that EU states should encourage home composting whenever there are viable outlets for the resulting compost “such as private gardens”.
And, separate collections should be set up, where they are not already in place, “with the aim of collecting biowaste separately from other kinds of waste in order to prevent the contamination of biowaste with other polluting wastes, materials and substances”.
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