The Environmental Services Association (ESA) and the Organics Recycling Group (ORG) have been in discussions with the European Commission’s DG ENTR (Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry), which is developing the Fertiliser Regulations.
With the proposed legislation set to be published either by the end of 2014 or early 2015, it is not yet known how the Fertiliser Regulations will be implemented across Europe and what impact the Regulations will have on national controls applying to waste and product materials.
Working together to glean more information on the forthcoming Regulations, the ORG’s and the ESA’s understanding had previously been that the forthcoming Regulations would apply only to UK manufacturers seeking to trade their composts and digestates as ‘EC fertilisers’.
This would have meant that the regulations would only apply to UK digestates and composts placed on the market outside the UK in other EU countries as soil improvers, organics fertilisers or growing media.
Concern
However, the two trade bodies are now concerned that there has been a change in tack at the European Commission, which it is understood to favour harmonising the EU fertiliser market and therefore to reject the idea of having separate national End of Waste controls for domestic markets in Europe.
According to the ORG, this follows recent discussions between FEAD, the European Federation representing the waste management industry, and the DG ENTR, which have indicated that the Commission’s approach towards the new legislation could be different from that previously anticipated.
And, should the EU Fertiliser Regulations supersede Quality Protocols in the UK domestic market, this could mean organics recyclers and compost manufacturers would have to comply with a new set of technical requirements.
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The ORG believes these requirements for waste-derived fertilisers would likely be in line with those put forward in the Joint Research Centre’s report on End of Waste criteria for composts and digestates, which was published in January 2014.
In comments on the safety and quality requirements in the Regulations submitted to the DG ENTR earlier this month, the Renewable Energy Association (REA) – which includes the ORG – said: “It is extremely difficult to provide meaningful comments on the proposed safety and quality requirements when it is not clear as yet how the EU Fertiliser Regs will be implemented across Europe and what impact they will have on our national regulatory controls applying to ‘waste’ and ‘product’ composts and digestates.”
The submission added that the DG ENTR should “provide clarity with a matter of urgency” on how the EU Regulations will apply to composts and digestates produced to national regulations.
Teleconference
Ahead of the final publication of the Fertiliser Regulations, the ESA is currently seeking to arrange a teleconference with the DG ENTR – which will also be attended by the ORG along with Defra, WRAP and the Environment Agency – in order to gain clarification on how the legislation will be applied across the EU.
Should the DG ENTR’s proposed Regulations be ready by the next meeting of the EU Fertilisers Working Group on December 15 2014, it will be presented to the group members at this meeting.
However, the ORG believes that it is “more likely” the proposed legislation will be published at the start of 2015.
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