Archived press release

New EU Waste Directive encourages incineration

21 December 2005

New draft waste proposals, published by the European Commission today [1], will result in more household rubbish going up in smoke and less being recycled, Friends of the Earth said today. The new draft `Waste Framework Directive' sets the agenda for waste policy in the EU & UK. Friends of the Earth is urging the European Commission to give more priority to recycling, composting and waste minimisation.

Friends of the Earth Senior Resources Campaigner Dr Michael Warhurst said:

"This is a pathetic piece of work from the European Commission - it should just be torn up and thrown in the recycling bin. We are calling on the UK Government and UK MEPs to spend 2006 rewriting this draft law, to create a new waste policy that will further expand recycling, and encourage industry to innovate towards more recyclable and sustainable products, rather than a policy that promotes wasteful incineration."

The draft revised Directive will be debated by EU governments and Members of the European Parliament over the next two years and can be rewritten [2].

Friends of the Earth said key deficiencies in the draft include:

• Placing incineration on the same level as reuse and recycling, in spite of the fact that recycling preserves resources, and saves more greenhouse gas emissions than incineration with energy recovery [3].

• Removal of a provision for additional related directives, which can be used to deal with the problems of recycling specific materials, such as legislation requiring product manufacturers to make their products easier to recycle. For example, the `WEEE' Directive is already encouraging manufacturers of electrical equipment to innovate to make their products greener - though the Department for Trade and Industry seems to be unable to implement it in the UK [4].

• No targets for recycling or for minimising waste

Notes

[1] The European Commission published two documents on waste today, a "Thematic Strategy on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste", and proposal for a revised Waste Directive. The documents will be available from the European Commission's waste strategy web site:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/waste/strategy.htm

[2] The proposed Waste Directive will be discussed line-by-line by both the European Parliament (including UK MEPs) and by EU Member States (including the UK Government). This `codecision' process, which will probably involve 2 readings, will take around 2 years (though many aspects will be resolved in 2006). This process is likely to result in changes to the proposed Directive.

[3] For more information on the environmental problems of incineration, and references for further information, see the Friends of the Earth briefing "Up in smoke"
www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/up_in_smoke.pdf (PDF)

[4] The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive obliges producers and importers of electrical equipment to pay for the take back and recycling of the equipment at the end of its life. The more recyclable the equipment is designed to be, the less the producers and importers will need to pay. The WEEE Directive was supposed to have come into force in the UK by August 2005, but instead the DTI has just announced that it will carry out yet another consultation:
www.dti.gov.uk/news/newsarticle201205b.html

For more information on Friends of the Earth's work on waste, see:
www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/waste/

†To view PDF files you will need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader. Visually impaired users can get extra help with these documents from access.adobe.com.

If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.

Published by Friends of the Earth Trust