The five pillars of waste management

EU efforts to manage waste can be categorised in five main ways, writes Emily Smith.

When the European Commission published a thematic strategy on waste two years ago, it proclaimed that: "The long-term goal is for the EU to become a recycling society."

This grand-sounding goal was welcomed by environmentalists. The environmental benefits of recycling have for a long time been received wisdom for many Europeans.

At the same time, the Commission published a proposal to revise the EU’s waste framework directive (WFD) and for the first time suggested spelling out in legislation a ‘waste hierarchy’ to encourage recycling (see table). The proposal said that more emphasis should be placed on the hierarchy, which had been only implied in the original 1975 waste directive, but it added that the hierarchy "should not be seen as a hard and-fast rule".

MEPs responded that this was not enough. They wanted action to make sure that the directive and the waste strategy increased recycling levels rather than just words. At a first-reading vote last November, Parliament voted to turn the hierarchy into a binding rule.

National governments batted this back to a more flexible "guiding principle" at their second reading in June.

This and many other differences between the Parliament and Council positions have made it likely that the revision of the WFD will end up in conciliation talks. The need to reach a compromise has increased speculation that the five-step hierarchy might, after all, end up as a hard-and-fast rule.

But is recycling really the best option for the environment? Many EU interest groups argue that it is not.

"We think it is important to find the best eco-option for every waste stream," says Jan-Erik Johansson of industry group PlasticsEurope. "Waste is not waste, it is a resource waiting to be made use of."

PlasticsEurope argues that this does not necessarily mean recycling or even re-using the ‘waste’. While plastic bottles can and should be recycled into new products, says Johansson, recycling thin plastic wrappings or yoghurt pots would do more harm than good.

This is both because of the large amounts of time and chemicals used to clean food traces off small plastic products before recycling and the large amount of energy then used to produce a tiny end resource.

He says that thin plastics offer greater environmental benefits if they are burnt in an efficient incinerator to produce energy. Known as ‘energy recovery’, this waste option is below recycling in the hierarchy.

Most EU countries are beginning to understand the impracticality of recycling everything, says Johansson, and are developing their own cut-off point somewhere between thick plastic bottles and Clingfilm.

"Recycling and recovery are not contradictory measures," he says. "Countries that have high environmental ambitions, like Belgium and Sweden, have well developed facilities for both recycling and efficient incineration."

Joachim Quoden, general manager of the packaging industry group PRO EUROPE, agrees that recycling is not always the greenest choice. He says that although 80% or 90% of packaging waste could be recycled, it is important not to force the other 10-20% through expensive processes that waste energy and offer no environmental benefits.

The Parliament last year said that recovery would only be allowed instead of recycling if "clear benefits" could be proved. PRO EUROPE believes that such a system would be unworkable.

"I think that this would make a lot of consultants rich," says Quoden, "but it would remain very hard to get away from the hierarchy."

Last year the paper, glass, aluminium, iron and steel manufacturing industries joined PlasticsEurope and packaging representatives EUROPEN, and wrote to the Parliament asking for a "pragmatic and flexible [hierarchy] since each local situation and each product and waste stream can be different". They were supported by EU sectors including the food and drinks industry (CIAA) and trade group Eurocommerce.

MEPs were not convinced. Industry is hoping for better luck at the second reading in the spring.

But environmentalists are ready to fight for their recycling society. Michael Warhurst of environmental group Friends of the Earth says it is right to promote recycling over recovery. "Evidence from life-cycle analyses have shown that recycling is better than incineration," he says. "Incineration produces energy very inefficiently and it is a very expensive technology."

In particular he is critical of the idea that plastics should be used to generate energy, because most plastics are derived from fossil fuels. If a product cannot be recycled efficiently, says Warhurst, producers should switch to recyclable materials, rather than asking for a flexible hierarchy.

Above all, he says, more attention is needed for the top two steps in the hierarchy: waste prevention and reuse. "We need to move to a more resource-efficient future," says Warhurst. "That’s not about burning things."

• Five steps to a cleaner environment - the waste hierarchy

The ‘hierarchy of waste’ - demanded for legislation by EU environment ministers and MEPs at second reading (in declining order of importance)

1 Prevention

2 Reuse

3 Recycling

4 Recovery, including energy recovery

5 Disposal

EU efforts to manage waste can be categorised in five main ways, writes Emily Smith.