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The European Commission has indicated that it will not pursue separate legislation for biowaste and hinted there will not be a Biowaste Directive, prompting anger from stakeholders such as the European Compost Network and the European Federation of Waste Management and Environmental Services (FEAD).

Biowaste Directive plans look set to be dropped

The Commission indicated its position on biowaste at a meeting on March 2 entitled ‘Managing biowaste in the EU…What next?’. Nadine de Greef, FEAD secretary general, who was at the meeting reported that representatives of the EC said that it did not want a new Biowaste Directive but instead wanted to focus on better regulation and enforcement of current legislation rather than put its energies into developing something completely new.

 Josef Barth, managing director of the European Compost Network (ECN), who was also at the meeting, explained: “The EC said they want to try to use what they already have via extra enforcement or extra supplementary legislation to the Waste Framework Directive.”

 He explained that instead of a new directive the EC has suggested adding on biowaste-specific legislation to the Waste Framework Directive, the Landfill Directive and also “doing something with the end-of-waste criteria” that is currently under development.

Stakeholders 

No decisions have been taken yet, however, stakeholders have criticised the direction the EC appears to be taking. Ms de Greef commented: “Everyone except the EC seems to be in favour of a directive but a Biowaste Directive is not the EC’s favourite scenario.”

Mr Barth said the proposals were “not enough” and explained that strong targets were needed to help encourage the development of the organics recycling sector in Europe. He explained that without strict targets there would no incentive for banks and businesses to invest in developing infrastructure to treat organic waste.

The Association for Organics Recycling (AfOR) also condemned the idea of dropping the directive. It re-iterated its request to develop separate targets for biowaste, which it originally outlined in 2009 when responding to a consultation on the potential for future European biowaste legislation (see letsrecycle.com story).

It said in its original response: “Better guidance should be provided by the Commission (for example, through a Bio-waste Directive) on where the bio-waste should go and how they should be managed properly. In addition, bio-waste recycling and source separation targets should be set to act as drivers for Member States to implement bio-waste management schemes.”

AfOR chief executive Jeremy Jacobs said the organisation’s position remained the same. He echoed Mr Barth’s concerns that a lack of focused biowaste legislation would impede investment into organics and added: “You need legislation to underpin targets. Enforcing current legislation is not going to help. It has to be underpinned by tougher legislative requirements.”

The stakeholders are also concerned that lack of legislation will drive down the quality of compost and digestate which is being produced already. Kiara Zennaro, technical officer at AfOR, said that in addition to setting recycling targets, it was also important to develop legislation which highlights the importance of ensuring quality compost that is fit for purpose.

Mr Barth agreed that integrated legislation which took into account quality standards and collection targets was required for biowaste and said something needed to be done quickly.

The EC is set to publish its impact assessment, which examines the need for separate biowaste legislation, in the next two weeks. Ms de Greef said there were indications that the impacts assessment would say that the benefits of new and separate legislation will be “limited”.

The EC has a history of abandoning biowaste legislation. In 2005 it was attacked by stakeholders for “killing off” separate legislation (see letsrecycle.com story). However, in 2008 the prospect of the Biowaste Directive was revived and the EC launched a consultation to assess the need for new legislation (see letsrecycle.com story).