Archived press release

Friends of the Earth condemns UK position in EU waste debate

9 March 2006

Friends of the Earth condemns UK position in EU waste debate Friends of the Earth today condemned the UK Government for opposing the creation of minimum standards for disposal and recycling facilities across Europe as Elliot Morley, Environment Minister, met with his European counterparts to discuss a new European Union Strategy on Waste Prevention and Recycling [1].

In a position paper, which has been circulated to other Member States, the Government argues against the creation of minimum standards which would ensure that recycling facilities across the EU operate to high levels of environmental performance.

Friends of the Earth is in favour of regulation to improve the protection of human health and the environment, though want to see it combined with action to ensure that help is available for small recyclers to meet any new regulations. Friends of the Earth has been told that this is a position the UK waste industry is comfortable with, given the benefits of having a more level playing field across Europe.

Friends of the Earth's Senior Waste and Resources Campaigner, Dr Michael Warhurst, said:

"The UK government is driven by an ideological commitment to deregulation, whatever the impact on the environment. There are serious environmental problems to be dealt with, not least our inefficient and growing use of resources, yet the Government persists in its short-term, anti-regulatory agenda, rather than pushing for progress towards a more resource-efficient society"

Friends of the Earth is calling on the UK government to take a lead in strengthening the European Waste Strategy by:

• Creating an effective and target-driven process to push waste minimisation across Europe.

• Ensuring that reuse, recycling and composting are promoted above residual waste disposal methods such as incineration and landfill [2]. The policy should then be focussed on phasing out this residual waste, for example through making products recyclable.

• Pushing for continued extension to the product-based producer responsibility approach which would oblige more manufacturers to make their products recyclable. This approach is exemplified by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, which obliges manufacturers to design their electrical products to be more recyclable [3].

Notes

[1] On 21^st December 2005, the European Commission published a "Thematic Strategy on Waste Prevention and Recycling" and a proposed revision of the Waste Framework Directive, which is the EU's overarching waste policy framework. Ministers are today discussing the Thematic Strategy; they will discuss the revisions to the Directive later in the year.

[2] The Commission's proposal merges reuse, recycling and energy recovery into one level on the waste hierarchy; in contrast UK Government policies have a 5 level hierarchy:

Waste prevention > Reuse > Recycle/compost > Energy recovery > Disposal.

[3] The EU's Thematic Strategy recommends an ill-defined `materials approach' to producer responsibility, and the Director of DG Environment's waste unit has stated in a letter to Friends of the Earth that he "considers that product based producer responsibility Directives have reached the end of their usefulness". The WEEE Directive should have been implemented in the UK in August 2005, but instead the DTI is currently running another consultation on its implementation.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust