Legislation on hazardous and non-hazardous waste will be fused into a single Directive
The European Commission is in favour of fusing legislation on hazardous and non-hazardous waste into a single Directive on the grounds that it meets the objective of streamlining European legislation on the subject, Acting European Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 14 April 1999. Two Commission proposals dealing with the incineration of both hazardous and non-hazardous waste had come before the House to which a total of 71 amendments have been tabled, including 42 from the Environment Committee. The aim of the proposals is to prevent or minimize the negative environmental effects of incinerating waste, particularly the pollution of air, soil and water. To this end, they fix operating conditions and emission limits for plants involved in incineration and will replace a number of existing directives. Europe-wide standards are needed to prevent "waste tourism", whereby waste is transported from one country to another in search of the slackest regulations. The reporter, MEP Johannes Blokland, stressed the importance of the issue because of the effects of incineration on human health and air quality throughout the European Union (EU). He recommended that the two proposals should be fused into a single piece of legislation. He tabled a series of further amendments dealing with the definition of waste and incineration plants, and he stressed the need to have constant emission standards and clear rules for outputs, as outputs were more important than inputs. Mr Blokland went on to argue that the same rules should apply to all incineration plants - including incineration in cement kilns. He called for flue-gas purification in order to avoid ammonia emissions to the air. He also expressed dissatisfaction that many combustion plants were not complying with rules that came into force in 1989 because of the cost implications. In conclusion, he argued that in order to improve health and air quality there was a need for proper, uniform rules. For the Socialist group, Kirsten Jensen cautioned that it might be slightly dangerous to merge the two directives. Karl-Heinz Florenz lamented the fact that 13 Member States were not applying the current stringent measures on emissions and argued that incinerators in some countries could not be allowed to lag behind. He favoured stringent values and the use of "Best Available Technology" and was also able to support the Commission proposal. He argued in particular that there should be standardized measurement systems across the EU. The main cleavage was between those who backed the report's support for a single Community Directive on hazardous and non-hazardous waste and those who wanted two different pieces of legislation. Support appeared equally balanced on either side of this argument and went across party boundaries. The case for a single Directive was based on the feeling that this would simplify the legal situation and make the legislation easier to implement. Opponents of this view, however, argued that any attempt to link the two types of waste would only produce confusion and make it more difficult to carry out checks to see whether waste had been correctly disposed of according to its type.