Activites

• 2004/04/20 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T5-0308/2004 summary

    The European Parliament adopted a resolution based on the own-initiative report drafted by Karl- Heinz FLORENZ (EPP-ED, D), welcoming the Commission's communication as an appropriate basis for discussion of future strategy. It asked the Commission to give primary emphasis on concrete measures aimed at waste prevention, so that it achieves the objectives of the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme. Parliament welcomed the fact that the communication broadens the thematic strategy for waste recycling to include the vital areas of waste management, inter alia, waste prevention and clarification of the legal framework. The overall objective of the strategy is to reduce to a minimum the negative environmental impact of waste. This means that, in the thematic strategy, environmental impact should be defined, that recycling is not an end in itself, especially not for hazardous waste, and that the waste hierarchy should be correctly applied for different situations and materials. Since its is the environmental impact that counts, Parliament called for future legislation to give preference to waste disposal over re-use and recycling only where there is a clear evidence that it actually is more environmentally friendly. This could, for instance, be determined through a comparison of emission and energy consumption levels for the various alternative processes throughout their lifecycle. Parliament felt that the objective of the sustainable waste management strategy must be prevention of the generation of waste and sustainable resource management. The Commission must continue to propose the mandatory phasing out of certain hazardous substances in product-related legislation as an effective means of qualitative waste prevention, so as to contribute to an overall reduction of 20% in the generation of hazardous waste by 2010. Parliament went on to discuss the need to speed up the entire Treaty-infringement procedure in the waste sector, in order to put an end to the competitive disadvantages suffered by companies established in Member States which implement legislation within the prescribed period. It also discussed the need for more intensive coordination between the Member States to avoid excessive discrepancies in transposition into national law. It proposed the establishment of a waste steering and advisory committee. Parliament went on to propose that a separate category, 're-use', be distinguished from the waste category 'recovery', between prevention and recycling. In this way, re-use will be defined in its own right and it will be possible to take effective measures to promote re-use. An optimal waste management strategy is a combination of prevention, re-use of products and components, recycling of materials, energy recovery and environmentally friendly disposal. Parliament also stated that it rejected compulsory waste reduction plans, since such plans would have too great an impact on production processes. Voluntary waste reduction plans or programmes at regional, local or sectoral level would, by contrast, be welcome. It called on the Commission to establish tools supplementary to the waste reduction framework, such as: - a cleaner production benchmark for structural funding, - an EU network of technical assistance centres on cleanerproduction that offer their services free of charge, - criteria for waste reduction for inclusion in the industry authorisation process, - a system of accredited re-use and repair centres, - guidelines and criteria for implementing "pay-as-you-throw" schemes, and a working group for sharing knowledge about best practice on "pay-as-you-throw" schemes.�

• 2004/04/01 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 2004/03/16 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A5-0176/2004
• 2003/09/04 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 2003/05/27 Non-legislative basic document published
  • COM(2003)0301 summary

    PURPOSE : to launch a process of consultation of the Community institutions and of waste management stakeholders to contribute to the development of a comprehensive and consistent policy on waste prevention and recycling. CONTENT : firstly, it should be noted that each EU citizen currently produces an average of 550kg of municipal waste per year. This is far beyond the target of 330 kg set down in the EU's 1993 Fifth Environment Action Programme. The amount of waste constitutes a major waste management problem and has significant environmental impact. The Communication on waste prevention and recycling launches a broad consultation exercise on how to avoid generating waste, how to reduce the use of resources, and which wastes to recycle. This Communication is a first contribution to the development of a thematic strategy that will cover both waste prevention and recycling. It is the starting point of a consultation process which will continue until the Commission adopts proposals both for the overall framework of the thematic strategy and for the individual measures through which the strategy will be implemented. This Communication has been inspired by a life-cycle approach to resources management and takes the waste phase as its starting point. Indeed, waste prevention and recycling can reduce the environmental impact of resource use in two ways: avoiding negative environmental impacts from the extraction of primary raw materials and from the transformation of primary raw materials in production processes. Waste prevention and recycling should also be seen as part of a broader waste management strategy. The challenge for policy makers is to find the optimal recycling rate and the best combination of different approaches. Additionally, the focus on environmental benefits achievable through waste prevention and recycling at upstream phases of the life-cycle of resources must be complemented by reducing environmental impacts at the waste management phase including in waste recycling. In relation to waste prevention, the objective of this Communication is to launch, for the first time, a consultation process leading to the development of a comprehensive strategy, including waste prevention targets and the instruments needed to achieve them. The communication invites a very broad discussion, including on: - identifying potentials for waste prevention; - exchange of good practices and experience with a view to defining how the EU may contribute to these; - the role of the future chemicals policy as regards qualitative prevention of waste; - exploring how voluntary or mandatory waste prevention plans could contribute to waste prevention; - assessing the waste prevention potential of the directive on Integrated Pollution prevention and Control (IPPC). For waste recycling, this Communication invites comments on options to promote recycling, including on: - the development of material based recycling targets in articulation with end-of-life products based targets; - getting the prices of the different waste treatment options right by using economic instruments, which could include tradable certificates, the co-ordination of national landfill taxes,promoting pay-as-you-throw schemes and making producers responsible for recycling; - ensuring recycling is both easy and clean. In some cases, implementation of EU waste law may have led to unnecessary burdens on the recycling industry. Such problems need to be identified and solved. Additionally, common approaches for recycling could ensure that recycling businesses apply the best available technology. The European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and all stakeholders are invited to provide comments on this Communication by 30 November 2003. The final Strategy will be produced in 2004.�

  • DG [{'url': 'http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/environment/', 'title': 'Environment'}],

Documents

• Non-legislative basic document published: COM(2003)0301
• Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading: A5-0176/2004
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T5-0308/2004

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)