The draft document has now been welcomed by environment pressure group Zero Waste Europe which said the proposed ending of financial support would stop ‘market distortion’.
Published earlier this month, the draft report was produced by the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety’s (ENVI) and was in response to the revision of the Renewable Energy Directive.
According to Zero Waste Europe, the report represents a first ‘important step’ towards the alignment of EU energy and circular economy policies, by excluding financial support for incineration of mixed municipal solid waste.
Amendments
In the draft, the committee ENVI outlined a series of amendments for the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
Recommendations included that support schemes for electricity from renewable sources should not ‘undermine’ the principles of the circular economy and the waste hierarchy.
The committee said: “As noted in the Commission Communication of 27 January 2017 on “The role of waste to energy in the circular economy”, recovery of energy from waste in the Union should support the objectives of the circular economy action plan and should be firmly guided by the Union’s waste hierarchy.
“Therefore, as of 2021, Member States should not be allowed to provide financial support for the incineration of municipal waste.”
In response to the draft report Janek Vahk, development and policy coordinator at Zero Waste Europe, said: “We have been calling for the elimination of financial support for energy extraction from mixed waste as this subverts one of the key cornerstones of the EU waste policy – the waste hierarchy”.
“We have been calling for the elimination of financial support for energy extraction from mixed waste as this subverts one of the key cornerstones of the EU waste policy – the waste hierarchy”.
Janek Vahk
Zero Waste Europe
EfW
According to Zero Waste Europe, the effect of the financial support for EfW has resulted in a ‘clear distortion’ of the market, whereby the choice of waste management options and the investment in waste infrastructure have been based on such subsidies, rather than on a sound environmental and economic performance.
The organisation claimed that as a consequence, several European countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, have overinvested in energy from waste plants, whilst underinvesting in recycling facilities.
Zero Waste Europe has highlighted the negative impacts of incineration in the past. In December 2015 it claimed air pollution problems from waste incineration activities across Europe may be “significant” and “serious”. (see letsrecycle.com story)
The draft report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources can be found here.
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