The European Parliament's environment committee also said ships and aircraft should be included in the EU's list of potentially dangerous waste, and wants a ban on exporting ships due for scrapping to non-EU countries.
The committee was voting this week on the revised Regulation on the shipments of waste, agreeing to send the legislation forward for a second reading in the full Parliament, which is expected to take place later this month.
The Regulation is intended to replace an EU regulation of 1993, which the EU said “has proved ineffective” because since that date the European waste market has grown considerably. The new legislation is also needed to incorporate standards issued by the OECD in 2001 and the Basel Convention amended in 1998.
MEPs said that despite efforts made over the years to cut waste generation at source, rubbish continues to pile up and there is now a large crossborder trade in waste “not to speak of illegal trafficking”, while controls are “often light or non-existent”.
Rejected
However, MEPs on the committee rejected three key measures put forward by Dutch MEP Johanes Blokland. Mr Blokland had wanted to ban the export of waste if that waste could be processed by the country that produced it.
He also called for authorisation of exports of waste for recovery to be granted only if the recovery was “final” – therefore banning “interim” waste shipments. Mr Blokland was concerned that interim shipments would see stocks of hazardous materials building up as “sham recovery”.
The Dutch MEP also argued that animal by-products should be covered by the regulation.
On all three points, MEPs decided Mr Blokland's ideas would hinder free trade within the EU – therefore agreeing with the position of the EU Council of Ministers.
Commission
During the debate, the environment committee unanimously criticised the European Commission for calling for further analysis of the shipments regulation as it was already going through the legislative pipeline (see letsrecycle.com story).
Spanish MEP Maria del Pilar Ayuso Gonsalez said her party was “extremely surprised at this step by Commissioner Verheugen”. She said she was astonished that a regulation on which Parliament was in the process of voting might be called into question.
Mr Blokland told MEPs that as far as he knew, Commission assessments of the regulation would be internal and additional and would not challenge the legislation already in the pipeline.
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