Waste

Preparatory work for the development of the Waste Strategy

Communication "Towards a thematic strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste"

The first step in the development of this Strategy was the adoption by the Commission on 27 May 2003 of a Communication "Towards a thematic strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste".

Communication COM (2003) 301:
Press release IP/03/762 of 27/05/2003:

This Communication includes an assessment of Community waste policy in relation to prevention and recycling. It focuses on the means to promote more sustainable waste management, by minimising the environmental impacts of waste while also taking into account economic and social considerations. The Communication aims at developing a comprehensive strategy which includes waste prevention targets and measures needed to achieve them. It also investigates ways to promote waste recycling where potential environmental benefits exists and analyses options to achieve recycling objectives in the most cost-effective way possible.

The Communication was submitted to other European Institutions and to stakeholders for comments.

Preparatory meetings

On 16 February 2004 a meeting was held with stakeholders to launch a structured stakeholder and expert consultation which comprised 5 expert meetings and two plenary meetings. A number of meetings and workshops have also been held with Member States.

Early 2005, the EU Member States and stakeholders have been consulted on the legislative elements for the review of waste legislation. A questionnaire (pdf ~122K) was sent to the Member States and a meeting was held with them on 1 March 2005 to discuss any outstanding elements. Here can be found the slides (pdf ~384K) and outcome (pdf ~102K) of the meeting.

Stakeholders were convened on 11 March 2005 in Brussels. Attendance of this meeting was by invitation only, and was restricted to European level organisations. Here can be found the agenda (pdf ~104K), slides (pdf ~443K) and outcome (pdf ~112K) of the meeting.

Impact Assessment

The Strategy was also submitted to an impact assessment as part of the general approach of the Commission to using impact assessments to inform its decisions.

Mid 2004, stakeholders were invited to provide the Commission with data and information concerning the economic, environmental and social impacts of alternative options considered for inclusion in the final strategy. See here the contributions from stakeholders to the impact assessment.

The Commission commissioned a study called “Support in the drafting of and ExIA on the Thematic Strategy on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste”. The final report contains specific and targeted information and data of relevance to the Impact Assessment. The report includes:

A series of summary tables presenting the information found in 167 literature references and in stakeholder contributions on the impacts of waste generation and management and the identification of the data/information gaps and an assessment of the potential and the work to be done to fill the gaps;
A comparative assessment of material based and product based recycling policies for paper (qualitative assessment) and for plastics (quantitative assessment);
A qualitative assessment of the impacts of extending the IPPC Directive to additional waste management activities.