Introduction:
Waste
Waste
is defined in Article 18 of Directive 75/442/EEC
[1].
As
a result of economic growth, waste from all sources has increased dramatically
over the last decades. The waste management sector, in charge of waste
treatment and disposal, has become an independent economic sector, as waste
management becomes an environmental problem of growing concern.
Hazardous
and non-hazardous waste present risks to the environment. The environmental
impacts that have been most closely associated with waste management are, for
example:
- greenhouse
effect (e.g. methane emissions from landfill sites),
- pollution
of ground and surface water,
- soil
contamination,
- additional
health impacts from odour, noise (e.g. waste transport) and nature deterioration.
Moreover,
the proper treatment of waste is an economic burden on industry, municipalities
and households and creates in itself secondary waste – mostly hazardous
waste.
One
of the key tasks for the 1990s, as outlined in the Fifth Environmental Action
Programme, is to halt and reverse current trends in waste generation, in terms
of both volume increase and environmental hazard and damage. The European
Union's strategy for waste management, Council Resolution of 7 May 1990,
focused on prevention, reuse, promotion of recovery, minimisation of final
disposal, regulation of transport and remedial action.
A
major influence on the waste management policies of Member States has been the
Basle Convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous waste
and their disposal. The Convention requires generation and transboundary flows
to be reported, for different types of hazardous waste, as laid down in the
Annexes 1 and 2 of the Convention
[2].
A further development of the Convention introduced a ban on exports of
hazardous waste to non-OECD countries. This was transposed into Community
legislation by Council Regulation (97/120/EC)
[3].
Chapter
20 of Agenda 21 titled "Environmentally sound management of hazardous waste" is
also followed under the EU waste strategy and related legislation.
Compilation
of waste statistics at Community level has shown that the data in the Member
States are very heterogeneous. A statistical methodology was proposed in order
to remedy this situation, including a system of statistical surveys in
industry, local authorities and the processing sector. The proposed methodology
was tested via four pilot studies undertaken by Denmark, the Netherlands,
Portugal and the United Kingdom. The main conclusion was that a common
classification system is crucial for the comparability of data between Member
States.
[1]
OJ
L 194 of 25.7.1975, p.2
[2]
The
Annex 1 list consists of 45 categories, 18 of which (Y1-Y18) are source
oriented waste types, Y19-Y45 refer to hazardous substances or chemicals
incorporated in wastes. Annex 2 lists two specific types of waste: Y 46 "Waste
collected from households" and Y 47 "Residues arising from the incineration of
household waste".
[3]
OJ
L 22 of 24.1.1997, p. 14.
