While all wastes exported for disposal, and hazardous wastes sent for recovery, which are notified to national authorities must be coded in a number of ways, the information then forwarded to the EC only needs to use the simple aggregated Basel Convention code.
These 47 codes are drawn from a longer list of 120 codes devised as part of the Basel Convention, an internationally-approved agreement ratified in 1992 to control trans-boundary hazardous waste shipments and disposal.
The report claimed that, by improving the quality of data reported to the EC for transboundary shipments, “more detailed reporting that gives a clear and detailed overview of legal shipments at EU level might also give a better indication of illegal shipments.”
“The more we know about legal activities, the better will be our understanding of illegal practices,” it added.
Hazardous
In particular, the study, which provides an overview of trans-frontier shipment of waste both within the EU and to non-EU countries, questioned the reporting methods currently used by EU countries to provide information to the European Commission on exports and imports of amounts of hazardous and problematic wastes.
“EU member states collect a huge quantity of data and information on the shipment of waste, but it is still impossible to ascertain whether, at the EU level, these shipments reduce negative effects on the environment,” it explained.
To rectify the situation, the report recommended that codes from the European Waste List, which are already submitted to national authorities to accompany waste shipments, be included on the information EU member states provide to the EC.
It explained that this would make it easier to gauge whether the growing number of trans-frontier shipments represented “sound waste management”.
“In turn this would provide information about whether waste shipments are driven by better treatment, sufficient capacity and effective pricing, or if waste is simply being shipped to plants and regions with lower quality standards, missing supervision or lack of legislation enforcement,” it added.
WEEE
The report particularly highlights the problems faced with WEEE, or e-waste, and claimed that “it is very difficult to follow transboundary shipments of e-waste within and out of the EU”.
As well as highlighting the “ambiguous” export codes assigned to WEEE, it also emphasises the difficulties faced in discerning whether a used electrical item is waste or second-hand, and as such whether or not it can exported outside the EU.
The issue of exporting electrical equipment outside the EU hit the headlines earlier this year, with claims that a TV sent from a Hampshire county council civic amenity site to Nigeria for re-use was, in fact, broken (see letsrecycle.com story).
The study explained that: “The inability to follow e-waste streams is a serious problem in the enforcement of the policy prohibiting export of certain hazardous waste types to non-OECD countries.”
Illegal shipments
It also referred to an increase in reported illegal shipments of waste between 2001 and 2005, and the fact that these probably represent “a fraction” of the “considerable” actual number.
But, it stressed that “scarcity of information means that illegal activities of any kind are difficult to analyse”.
It also detailed a “significant” increase in notified – largely hazardous and problematic – waste exports from EU member states between 1997 and 2005, adding that: “Apparently, the EU is increasingly acting as a single market in relation to treatment of hazardous and problematic waste.”
And, it pointed out that, by continuing to ship waste, individual EU member states were not moving closer to the Waste Framework Directive's target for them to become self-sufficient in their waste disposal.
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