Proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on waste management statistics (1999/C 87/02) (Text with EEA relevance) COM(1999) 31 final - 99/0010 (CNS)

(Submitted by the Commission on 27 January 1999)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community and in particular Article 213 thereof,

Having regard to the draft Regulation submitted by the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament,

Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee,

(1) Whereas regular Community statistics on the production and management of waste from businesses and private households are required by the Community for monitoring the implementation of the three principles - waste prevention, maximisation of recovery and safe disposal - governing waste management policy;

(2) Whereas the terms for the description of waste and waste management need to be defined in order to ensure the comparability of results in waste statistics;

(3) Whereas waste management policy has led to the establishment of a set of principles to be followed by waste producing units and waste management; whereas this requires the monitoring of waste at different points of the waste stream: of waste production, waste collection and waste treatment and disposal;

(4) Whereas Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 of 17 February 1997 on Community Statistics (1) constitutes the reference framework for the provisions of this regulation;

(5) Whereas, in order to guarantee comparable results, waste statistics should be produced in accordance with the determined breakdown in an appropriate form and within a fixed period of time from the end of the reference year;

(6) Whereas, in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality as set out in Article 3b of the Treaty, the objectives of the proposed measure, namely to establish a framework for the production of Community statistics on waste management cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, by reason of the need to define terms for description of waste and waste management so as to ensure the comparability of the statistics supplied by the Member States, and can therefore be better achieved by the Community; whereas this Regulation confines itself to the minimum required in order to achieve those objectives and does not go beyond what is necessary for that purpose;

(7) Whereas Member States may need a transition period for the adaptation or establishment of their statistics on waste;

(8) Whereas the implementation of this Regulation, and its adaptation to economic and technical progress, require close collaboration between the Commission and the Member States within the Statistical Programme Committee;

(9) Whereas the Statistical Programme Committee has been consulted by the Commission,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

1. The objective of this Regulation is to establish a framework for the production of Community statistics on waste management.

2. Member States and the Commission, within their respective fields of competence, shall produce Community statistics on the management of waste from businesses and private households.

3. The statistics shall cover the following areas:

(a) waste production and recovery by economic activities according to Annex I;

(b) household and similar waste collection by businesses and the municipal collection scheme according to Annex II;

(c) waste incineration, composting and disposal by businesses and municipal authorities according to Annex III.

In compiling the statistics, Member States and the Commission shall observe the equivalence between the European Waste Catalogue (EWC) established by Commission Decision 94/3/EC (2) and the substance-oriented aggregation, as set out in Annex IV to this Regulation.

Article 2

For the purposes of this Regulation:

(a) 'waste` shall mean any substance or object in the categories set out in Annex I to Council Directive 75/442/EEC (3) on waste, which the holder discards, or intends or is required to discard;

(b) 'management` shall mean the production, collection, transport, recovery and disposal of waste, including the supervision of such operations and after-care of disposal sites;

(c) 'recycling` shall mean the reprocessing, in a production process, of the waste materials for the original purpose or for other purposes including organic recycling, but excluding energy recovery;

(d) 'recovery` shall mean any waste management operation resulting in a product with a potential economical or ecological benefit including recycling and energy recovery;

(e) 'disposal` shall mean any waste management operation designed to prepare, or to carry out, the final treatment of waste;

(f) 'hazardous waste` shall mean any waste defined pursuant to Article 1(4) of Council Directive 91/689/EEC (4) such as listed in Council Decision 94/904/EC (5) establishing a list of hazardous waste or considered by a Member State to display any of the properties listed in Annex III of Directive 91/689/EEC;

(g) 'non-hazardous waste` shall mean waste which is not covered by point (f);

(h) 'landfill` shall mean a waste disposal site for the deposit of waste on to or into land, including internal waste disposal sites (i.e. landfill where a producer of waste is carrying out its own waste disposal at the place of production) and excluding facilities where waste is unloaded in order to permit its preparation for further transport for recovery, treatment or disposal elsewhere, and temporary (i.e. less than one year) deposit of waste prior to recovery, treatment or disposal.

Article 3

1. Member States shall, whilst complying with conditions as to quality and accuracy, acquire the data necessary for the specification of the characteristics listed in Annexes I, II and III by means of:

- compulsory surveys,

- use of other sources,

- statistical estimation procedures, or

- a combination of these means,

under the condition that quality and accuracy conditions are met.

In order to reduce response burdens, the national authorities and the Community authority shall, subject to the limits and the conditions fixed by each Member State and by the Commission in their respective spheres of competence, have access to administrative data sources.

2. In order to reduce administrative burdens on small enterprises, enterprises with less than ten employees shall be excluded from compulsory surveys.

3. Member States shall produce statistical results following the breakdown stipulated in Annexes I, II and III.

4. Member States shall transmit the results, including confidential data, to Eurostat in an appropriate format and within a period of time from the end of the respective reference periods as laid down in Annexes I, II and III.

Article 4

During a transitional period which may not exceed three years from the date of entry into force of this Regulation, the Commission may, at the request of the Member States, grant derogation from the provisions of Annexes I, II and III wherever the national statistical systems require major adaptations.

Article 5

The measures necessary for the implementation of this Regulation, including the adjustment to economic and technical developments, shall be determined in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 6.

These measures shall include, in particular:

(a) the adaptation of the specifications listed in the Annexes;

(b) the necessary implementation measures to produce results in accordance with Article 3(2), (3) and (4).

Article 6

1. The Commission shall be assisted by the Statistical Programme Committee.

2. The representative of the Commission shall submit to the Committee a draft of the measures to be taken. The Committee shall deliver its opinion on the draft within a time-limit which the Chairman may lay down according to the urgency of the matter. The opinion shall be delivered by the majority laid down in Article 148(2) of the Treaty in the case of decisions which the Council is required to adopt on a proposal from the Commission. The votes of the representatives of the Member States within the Committee shall be weighted in the manner set out in that Article. The Chairman shall not vote.

The Commission shall adopt measures which shall apply immediately. However if these measures are not in accordance with the opinion of the Committee, they shall be communicated by the Commission to the Council forthwith. In that event the Commission shall defer application of the measures which it has decided for a period of three months from the date of referral to the Council.

The Council, acting by a qualified majority, may take a different decision within the time limit referred to in the previous subparagraph.

Article 7

The Commission shall, within three years of the date of entry into force of this Regulation and every three years thereafter, submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the statistics compiled pursuant to this Regulation and in particular on their quality and the burden on business.

Article 8

This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

(1) OJ L 52, 22.2.1997, p. 1.

(2) OJ L 5, 7.1.1994, p. 15.

(3) OJ L 194, 25.7.1975, p. 39.

(4) OJ L 377, 31.12.1991, p. 20.

(5) OJ L 356, 31.12.1994, p. 14.

ANNEX I

WASTE PRODUCTION AND RECOVERY BY ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

Section 1

Coverage

The statistics are to be compiled for all activities classified within the coverage of the sections C to Q, except Division 12, of NACE REV. 1. These Sections cover all economic activities, except agriculture, hunting, forestry (A), fishing (B) and mining of uranium and thorium ores (12), which are outside the domain of this Annex.

Section 2

Waste categories

1. The waste categories for which statistics on waste production and recovery are to be compiled are derived as aggregation from the European Waste Catalogue (EWC).

2. Each item in the EWC is attributed to the aggregated substance-oriented waste list tabled in paragraph 3 of this Section. The transposition table between EWC and substance-oriented aggregation is listed in Annex IV.

3. Statistics on the following waste categories are to be produced:

>TABLE>

Section 3

Characteristics for the waste categories

The characteristics, for which the statistics are to be compiled, are set out in the table below. Minimum requirement for the breakdown of the listed characteristics is the three-digit level. All characteristics are referring to the waste list defined in Section 2, point 3 of this Annex.

>TABLE>

Section 4

First reference year and periodicity

1. The first reference year is the calendar year 1999.

2. Member States shall furnish the data every three years.

Section 5

Transmission of results to Eurostat

The results are to be transmitted within 18 months after the end of the reference year.

Section 6

Report on the coverage and quality of statistics

1. For each grouping of activities listed in Section 7, Member States shall indicate the percentage to which this activity is covered by data collection. The coverage can be estimated by external criteria such as employment for which data should be available for the statistical units defined in Section 7 of this Annex. If Member States want to use external criteria not related to the statistical units defined in Section 7 of this Annex they should explain the method elaborated in the quality report according to point 3 of this Section. Minimum requirement for the coverage is 90 % for each group of activities.

2. For the obligatory characteristics of the hazardous and non-hazardous waste categories listed in Section 3, Member States shall give a quality report, indicating the degree of precision for the collected data.

3. The Commission shall include the coverage and quality reports in the report provided for in Article 7 of this Regulation.

Section 7

Production of results

1. The results for the characteristics listed in Section 3, are to be compiled for the following groupings of NACE REV. 1:

>TABLE>

2. Statistical units are Local Units as defined in Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93 of 15 March 1993 on the statistical units for the observation and analysis of the production system in the Community (1).

(1) OJ L 76, 30.3.1993, p. 1.

ANNEX II

HOUSEHOLD AND SIMILAR WASTE COLLECTION BY BUSINESSES AND THE MUNICIPAL COLLECTION SCHEME

Section 1

Coverage

1. The statistics are to be compiled for all Kind-of-Activity Units (KAUs), defined in the Regulation (EEC) No 696/93, within the coverage of the Division 90, the Class 51.57 and the Section I of NACE REV. 1. These Sections cover the activities of transport (I), wholesale of waste and scrap (51.57) and sewage and refuse disposal (90).

2. Waste collection includes mixed and sorted household, public and similar waste according to the list in the following section.

3. Waste collection includes besides traditional waste collection by municipalities or on behalf of them also waste collection by businesses.

Section 2

Waste categories

1. The waste categories for which the statistics are to be compiled are listed below. The listed waste categories have to be kept separately.

2. List of waste categories

>TABLE>

Section 3

Characteristics

1. For each waste category listed in Section 2, point 2 the characteristics, set out in the table below, have to be compiled.

2. Data characteristics for household, public and similar waste collection:

>TABLE>

3. On regional level the characteristics listed in the table below have to be compiled:

>TABLE>

Section 4

First reference year and periodicity

1. The first reference year for which statistics are to be compiled is the calendar year 1999.

2. Member States shall furnish the data every three years.

Section 5

Transmission of results to Eurostat

The results are to be transmitted within 18 months of the end of the calendar year of the reference period.

Section 6

Report on the coverage and quality of statistics

1. For the characteristic 'population served by municipal collection scheme` listed in Section 3 to be compiled for NUTS 2-level, Member States shall give a quality report, indicating the degree of precision for the collected data.

2. For the other characteristics listed in Section 3 to be compiled for NUTS 1 or national level, Member States shall indicate the estimated coverage of data collection for each waste category. Minimum requirement 90 % for each waste category.

3. For the characteristics listed in Section 3, Member States shall give a quality report, indicating the degree of precision for the collected data.

4. The Commission will include the coverage and quality reports in the report provided for in Article 7 of this Regulation.

Section 7

Production of results

1. The results for all characteristics, except 2 00, have to be produced by a breakdown into the three NACE sections transport (I), wholesale of waste and scrap (51.57) and sewage and refuse disposal (90).

2. Statistical units for all characteristics are the Kind-of-Activity Units (KAUs) as defined in Regulation (EEC) No 696/93. For the characteristics to be produced at NUTS 1 or NUTS 2 level local-KAUs can be used as statistical units (optional).

ANNEX III

WASTE INCINERATION, COMPOSTING AND DISPOSAL BY BUSINESSES AND MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES

Section 1

Coverage

The statistics are to be compiled for the whole economy.

Section 2

Waste categories

The list of waste categories for which the statistics are to be compiled is the substance-oriented aggregation of EWC as defined in Section 2, paragraph 3 of Annex I.

Section 3

Characteristics

1. The characteristics, for which the statistics are to be compiled, are set out in the table below.

2. List of characteristics for incineration, composting and disposal operations:

>TABLE>

Section 4

First reference year and periodicity

1. The first reference year for which statistics are to be compiled is the calender year 1999.

2. Member States shall furnish the data annually.

Section 5

Transmission of results to Eurostat

The results are to be transmitted within 12 months of the end of the calendar year of the reference period.

Section 6

Report on the coverage and quality of statistics

1. For each type of operation listed in Section 7, paragraph 2, Member States will indicate the percentage to which this activity is covered by data collection. The coverage can be estimated by external criteria such as employment or amount of waste input. Minimum requirement for the coverage is 90 % for each type of operation.

2. For the characteristics listed in Section 3, paragraph 2, Member States will give a quality report, indicating the degree of precision for the collected data.

3. The Commission will include the coverage and quality reports in the report provided for in Article 7 of this Regulation.

Section 7

Production of results

1. The results for the characteristics listed in Section 3, are to be compiled for incineration, composting and disposal operations.

2. List of incineration, composting and disposal operations; the codes are referring to the codes in the Annexes of Directive 75/442/EEC adapted by Commission Decision 96/350/EC (1):

>TABLE>

3. Statistical units are the Kind-of-Activity Units (KAUs).

(1) OJ L 135, 6.6.1996, p. 32.

ANNEX IV

TRANSPOSITION TABLE-EUROPEAN WASTE CATALOGUE (EWC) - SUBSTANCE ORIENTED AGGREGATION

>TABLE>