Phase out of biodegradable waste to landfill proposed

The UK and other EU member states may be required to stop sending biodegradable municipal waste to landfill under plans being considered by the European Commission.

The organisation has announced that it intends to propose a phase-out of biodegradable waste going to landfill in 2020-2025 as part of a revision of the 1999 Landfill Directive.

At present, the most challenging target set under the Directive requires the UK to reduce the amount of biodegradable waste it sends to landfill to 35% of 1995 levels by 2020.

The revelation came from Jose Jorge Diaz del Castillo, the representative of the European Commission in charge of the Landfill Directive, who was speaking at a workshop in Prague last week (March 18) on the implementation of the Landfill Directive. The workshop was organised by the trade association for the European waste management industry, FEAD.

While the exact scope of the measure is still to be decided – with Mr Diaz del Castillo stressing it will not be an outright ban in the first instance the Commission is aiming to replicate the successes achieved in countries such as Germany where tight restrictions are in place. Its long-term intent is understood to be the elimination of sending biodegradable material to landfill altogether.

This would have big implications for the UK where 48% of municipal waste was sent to landfill in 2009, including much biodegradable material (see letsrecycle.com story).

Mr Diaz del Castillo indicated that the review will focus on article 5(2) of the existing Landfill Directive. This requires member states to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste they send to landfill to 75% of 1995 levels by 2006, 50% by 2009 and 35% by 2016.

The UK is among a number of countries which has four extra years to meet these targets, due to its historic reliance on landfill, meaning that it has to achieve these goals by 2010, 2013 and 2020 respectively.

This means that any targets put in place for 2020-25 for the UK are likely to fall four years later, in 2024-2029.

Recast

Because of its limited scope, the process is being referred to as a recast of the directive rather than a revision as such.

It is being lead by a Technical Adaptation Committee which was revived two years ago but has until now been focusing on the revision of technical annexes to the directive relating to landfill gas.

This has up until now been working on legislative changes in this area but because of the decision to phase out biodegradable waste to landfill between 2020-2025 non-binding technical guidelines will now be drawn up instead.

Before it can produce a formal proposal on phasing out biodegradable waste to landfill, the Commission will have to carry out an impact assessment, commission studies and hold expert meetings, which is all not expected to be complete until mid 2012 at the earliest.

Once this has been done, it can put more concrete plans forward for consideration by the European Parliament. The process is expected to be prolonged by the fact that Mr Diaz del Castillo is moving from his post. Therefore it is expected to be several years before any legislative changes are made.

FEAD

Laetitia Reynaud, policy officer at FEAD, told letsrecycle.com that Mr Diaz del Castillos announcement had come as something of a surprise.

She said: It was news to us we did not expect that. The latest development on the issue was that they were looking at the technical adaptation of the annexes of the directive in order to curb landfill gas emissions.

We dont know the exact scope but the political will is there to go further than 35% by 2016. They made the political decision last week or the week before.

Ms Reynaud said it was too early to make an official comment but that the proposal was probably positive. However, she said that it might be difficult to divert a lot of material without a specific Biowaste Directive which the European Commission ruled out in May last year (see letsrecycle.com story)

She said: This is in line with the overall strategy of the commission to move towards a recycling society. Its probably positive but what we are lacking appropriate legislation on what to do with this biodegradable waste which is going to landfill.

“We have always supported a Biowaste Directive. The appropriate legislative framework for the recycling of organic waste is what we have been calling for for years.

The Commission worked on a green paper. While the conclusion was not to produce a dedicated biowaste directive by work on different aspects they may revise the recycling target in the WDF [Waste Framework Directive] by 2014 the intention of the commission is to eventually include a biowaste recycling target. We were a bit disappointed by this.

We would have liked one single piece of legislation on the recycling of biodegradable waste what we would call a biowaste directive. It fits perfectly in terms of resource efficiency. But the commission failed to come up with a proposal on that.

Compliance

Also at the FEAD workshop, Mr Diaz del Castillo said that he feared that several countries may not have met the 2009 and 2010 Landfill Directive targets. While he could not name them, as the Commission services are currently gathering and analysing relevant data, he said the Commission would have a better idea of who had complied and who had not by the summer.

However, in general he emphasised that the outlook was promising, highlighting that the European landfill rate has fallen from 62% to 38% since 1995.
The FEAD workshop attracted more than 70 participants from 16 different countries and was the third to focus on the Landfill Directive implementation.