Debate on waste plan intensifies

Date: 20/06/1996

By Michael Mann

A REWORKED draft of the European Commission's strategy on waste management has failed to pacify lobbyists representing Europe's leading food and retail chains, who claim the changes have done little to address their key criticisms of an earlier paper.

While the latest version appears to reflect some of the concerns expressed about a draft prepared in January, the fundamental concept of prevention before recovery and disposal remains unaltered.

After informal talks between different Commission services, Directorate-General XI (environment) is now working on a further revision of the proposal before formal inter-service consultations begin.

Final adoption of a strategy to supersede the 1989 communication which first introduced a three-stage hierarchy for waste management is now unlikely before next month at the earliest, even though waste policy is supposed be the main topic at an informal meeting of environment ministers in Dublin on 19-20 July.

Industry sources suggest that any further changes will reflect concern within the Commission that DGXI's thinking discriminates too much against energy recovery from the incineration of waste. They say this flies in the face of studies being carried out by the Commission's own research and energy departments.

Further delays are also likely because of strong resistance in DGIII (industry) to DGXI's approach to waste recovery policy.

But the packaging industry has more immediate concerns. The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) says the Commission should first concentrate on drafting provisions to ensure member states do not use waste reduction policies as a barrier to imports.

The debate on waste policy intensified this week when the Commission agreed to Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard's request to withdraw the proposed landfill directive and begin work on a new version. This follows the Parliament's overwhelming rejection of ministerial amendments which would have exempted 70&percent; of EU landfills from the new rules.

Socialist MEP David Bowe is now pushing for the overall waste strategy to include a bolstered commitment to improving landfill rules.

In its latest draft strategy on waste management, the Commission has stuck to its original position of preferring the recovery of waste to energy recovery from waste incineration. Some member state officials believe, however, that this leaves the door open for energy recovery to be added as an extra stage in the hierarchy.

This could come to play a major role in the level of trade in waste between the member states. It would, for example, allow countries such as Denmark to control unwanted waste imports from across the border in Germany more effectively. Upcoming legislation in Denmark makes it crucial to maintain incineration capacity, which Danish officials say is being eaten up by imports from Germany.

The Commission's latest draft scales down the responsibility the earlier paper placed on manufacturers to minimise environmental damage caused by the goods they produce, stating only that the manufacturer “often has a predominant role” in waste management.

But Jacques Fonteyne of the European Recovery and Recycling Association (ERRA) claimed “the concept of producer responsibility had not been defined properly at all” and said this was typical of a text which was “lacking in quality”.

Fonteyne warned that attempts to enforce producer responsibility often resulted in consumers having to pay more in the shops. But he welcomed changes in the text which place the emphasis on “material recovery” as opposed to “material recycling”, claiming this would avoid linguistic confusion in certain member states and “broaden the scope” of the strategy.

Greenpeace campaigners insist, however, that this has “desperately weakened” the approach, because a commitment to recycling equates to a firm intention to give waste material “new life”. They say the Commission needs to establish a firm policy to achieve set objectives, rather than merely setting out the theoretical means to achieve undefined ends.

Both Fonteyne and Bill Seddon-Brown, chairman of the EU Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium, stress the need for clearer definitions of what constitutes waste and have called for improved cost-benefit analyses before waste policy is decided.

But for Fonteyne, the main problem is that the Commission is attempting to take too many initiatives in the environment field at the same time. “They first need to control properly the implementation of what already exists,” he insists.