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Environment Daily

10 September 2002 -- European metal recycling associations have launched a broadside against the European Commission over unpublished proposals to strengthen EU controls on trade in waste. The groups are arguing that the changes would unjustifiably hamper trade.

The planned revision of the 1993 regulation on transboundary waste shipments is intended to align EU law with recently revised OECD rules and with the UN Basel convention on transboundary movements of hazardous waste. The Commission's environment directorate began airing its proposals with industry groups in the spring, aiming to produce an official draft legislative proposal this autumn.

Under changes introduced last year, the OECD brought its system of waste lists in line with that in the Basel convention. Its former three-tier system of green, amber and red wastes for successively more dangerous substances now has just two categories: hazardous (amber controlled) and non-hazardous (green controlled) waste. The changes prompted the EU to consider changing its own rules as well.

Four European metal recycling trade associations, plus the Bureau of international recycling, joined forces this summer to oppose many of the Commission's initial ideas on how to do this, arguing that they are unnecessarily stricter than the OECD's version. In particular, they claim, a proposal to introduce a new procedural form for the shipment of non-hazardous (formerly "green") waste would impose an unfair administrative burden and threaten commercial confidentiality.

While the need to streamline the lists has been generally acknowledged, the EU's planned rules on the new amber or hazardous category have caused concern. Although the OECD requires only "tacit" consent for the movement of amber controlled wastes, the EU wants prior written notification and consent for hazardous waste shipments, effectively extending the "red controls" of the original 1993 regulation to a whole raft of substances, and setting stricter-than-OECD requirements.

Other planned deviations from the OECD text include a requirement of the competent authority in the exporting country to assume responsibility for notifying its counterparts of a hazardous waste shipment. In the OECD text, this is an optional procedure.

The draft EU text's requirement for a financial guarantee of transport, final disposal/recovery and interim storage costs to accompany a notification is seen by some as an unnecessary extra cost, before shipment is even permitted.