EU authorities step up waste trade checks
by ENDS Environment Daily
9 March 2005 –
Twelve EU governments have agreed to step up enforcement of cross-border waste shipments "from cradle to grave" after a study showed widespread irregularities and "shocking" gaps in enforcement activities. More countries are expected to join the initiative, which was agreed at a meeting in Berlin in late February.
The investigation was run by the transfrontier shipments cluster of Impel, the EU's network of industrial pollution inspectors. It aimed to check whether rules were being followed in a sample of shipments. Only intra-EU shipments for recovery of environmentally significant wastes requiring notification under the bloc's waste shipments regulation were included.
Its conclusions were alarming. Irregularities were found in three out of 11 shipments checked, a greater proportion than expected. In one case the waste was not what had been notified. In a second the local environmental permit of the receiving site was not in line with the notification.
In a third the waste exporter had deliberately cited an EU state as the destination whereas in fact the shipment was being sent to China. This was a clear breach of EU law since environmentally significant wastes requiring notification under the waste shipments regulation are automatically banned from being exported to developing countries.
The investigation also showed large deficiencies in national regulators' performance. Many authorities are incapable of respecting the three-day prior notification period for environmentally significant wastes required by the waste shipments regulation, it emerged.
Countries involved in Impel's response initiative are to carry out joint and coordinated inspections, starting at waste sources, during transport and then at treatment facilities. The partners have committed to boost information exchange and improve communications. Other authorities such as customs and police are to be drawn into the process.
In a related development, senior inspectors from nearly all EU member states will gather in Prague next week to discuss illegal exports of waste to non-EU states. The meeting follows evidence that the level of such exports is substantial and growing. There's a feeling that "the iron is hot now, and we have to strike it", an Impel official told Environment Daily.
Follow-up:
See
Impel, and transfrontier shipments,
press releases on Berlin initiative,
and Prague conference,
plus destination verification study.
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