New EU waste law finalised27 June 2008
The new European Waste Framework Directive has been finalised, after MEPs voted to accept a deal with member state governments in June 2008.
Since the revision process began, we have worked with organisations from fifteen countries.
New targets
Together, we pushed for improvements to be made to the proposed law, including the introduction of recycling and waste prevention targets.
The final deal does include Europe's first ever general recycling targets. Although they are not as strong or as ambitious as we wanted them, this is still a great step forward.
The directive also plans for a waste prevention target, to be set in 2014.
Unfortunately, and the law reclassifies some more efficient incinerators as 'recovery' of waste rather than 'disposal', which will encourage more incineration.
But we made considerable progress in improving the draft Directive published in December 2005.
Next steps
The deal will become law by the end of 2008, and then EU Governments will have two years to incorporate the changes into their law.
For more information, please see:
Press release - EU waste policy not fit for future
Discuss "New EU waste law finalised" in our forum