No C 269/10 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 10. 91 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EEC) on the supervision and control of 
shipments of waste within, into and out of the Community (1) 
(91/C 269/03) 
On 13 November 1990 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, 
under Article 100a of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, on the 
abovementioned proposal. 
The Section for Protection of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Affairs, which 
was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its Opinion on 
4 June 1991. The Rapporteur was Mr van Dam. 
At its 288th plenary session (meeting of 3 July 1991), the Economic and Social Committee 
adopted the following Opinion unanimously. 
1. Gist and rationale of the Commission proposal 
This is a proposal to up-date existing EC legislation on 
the transfrontier shipment of waste, for the following 
reasons: 
a) Previous EC legislation has been inadequately trans­
posed into that of the Member States. To ensure 
simultaneous and uniform application, a Regulation 
—rather than a Directive—is now proposed. 
b) The abolition of internal frontiers within the 
internal market by 1 January 1993 will necessitate 
new procedures regarding the supervision of waste 
shipments. 
c) Account must be taken of the Basel and Lome 
Conventions on the movements of waste to and 
from third countries. 
d) Experience has shown that the scope of the present 
Directive has made implementation difficult. The 
Commission therefore proposes extending the scope 
to all waste, because there is no clear distinction 
between hazardous and other types of waste and 
this can give rise to illegal actions. Furthermore, 
according to the Commission, normal waste often 
causes similar problems to those created by hazard­
ous waste. Frontiers between Member States are 
sometimes closed even more quickly for non-haz­
ardous than for hazardous waste. Consequently the 
Commission has decided to extend the scope to all 
waste in principe, both to protect the environment 
and to help complete the internal market. 
e) The proposal not only extends the scope to all— 
not just hazardous waste, but also to transport 
within the Member States. A waiting period of 15 
days before transport can begin is introduced for 
recyclable waste. Under the proposal restrictions may be placed on 
the movement of waste; these restrictions relate to 
distance and the rational, environmentally sound 
management of waste. These criteria are derived 
from the waste strategy and can justify intervention 
by the competent authorities in waste disposal mat­
ters. 
2. General comments 
2.1. The Committee basically welcomes the objec­
tives of the proposal. It sees full well the need for 
rules enabling the transport of hazardous waste to be 
monitored and for information to be made available 
on the nature and characteristics of such waste, so as 
to prevent uncontrolled transport posing a threat to 
man and environment. 
The Committee also recognizes that the Basel Conven­
tion and the new Lome IV Convention, not to mention 
the completion of the single market by 1 January 1993, 
necessitate an amendment of the present Directive. 
2.1.1. The Committee feels that attention will have 
to be given to the that some Member States are not yet 
adequately equipped to process hazardous waste. There 
is often strong public resistance to such facilities, which 
also have long lead times, and this has delayed the 
building of waste processing plants which are already 
presumed to exist in the proposal. 
Such a situation hampers considerably the operation of 
any rules on the supervision and control of shipments 
of waste. It is vital that the governments of the Member 
States concerned take appropriate action. 
(*) OJ No C 289, 17. 11. 1990, p. 9. 2.1.2. In assessing the proposal the Committee has 
to contend with the problem that it has still not been 
finalized. The Annexes to the waste Directive, 
14. 10. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 269/11 
to which the proposal refers for its definitions of various 
terms, are still not complete. Moreover, information 
from the Commission indicates that the 'white' list of 
recyclable waste [Article 2(2)(d)], to which the proposal 
will not apply, is far from being ready. As stated in 
l.d), the aim is for the Regulation to apply in principle 
to all waste. Article 2(2) lists a number of exemptions, 
but it is not possible to gain a clear picture of the 
exemptions while the 'white' list is still outstanding. 
2.1.3. Given the lack of clarity about these key 
elements in the proposal, the Committee can only offer 
a provisional assessment. Nevertheless, it is obliged to 
issue an Opinion and for the benefit of the Council's 
further deliberations it offers its comments below. It 
trusts that it will be consulted on the list of exemptions 
in due course. 
2.2. Scope to be limited 
2.2.1. The Committee thinks that it will be very 
difficult to apply the Regulation in practice and offers 
the following suggestions to facilitate implementation. 
The Committee proposes limiting the scope to hazard­
ous waste, like the present Directive, and making the 
notification system less like an authorization system in 
disguise. This will reduce the red tape and the possibility 
of bottlenecks in the movement of waste which can 
lead to the storage and accumulation of waste with all 
their consequences. 
2.2.2. The Committee realizes that such an approach 
affects the proximity criterion for non-hazardous waste 
and therefore suggests that the Commission put for­
ward a draft Directive which tackles this problem and 
also takes account of the Committee's views on the 
present proposal. 
2.2.3. The extension of the scope to all waste and to 
transport within the Member States, along with the 
introduction of a waiting period for recyclable waste, 
will add considerably to the administrative burden of 
implementing the proposed rules. Both the producers 
and shippers of waste and the waste authorities will 
have many more documents to deal with. 
2.2.4. It is not yet clear how many waste-disposal 
authorities responsible for specific areas in the Member 
States there are to be. There is a 22-page list of waste-
disposal authorities in the Community dating from 
1987. It this list still up-to-date? The number of waste-
disposal authorities is fixed by the Member States; they 
can reduce or increase the number. At present the United Kingdom has 180 such authorities. At all events 
these authorities' areas, addresses and processing 
capacity will have to be made known if the Regulation 
is to function. 
2.2.5. The amount of paperwork can also be gauged 
by the number of waste 'movements'. As a rough guide, 
the following movements by road, rail, inland waterway 
and sea of recyclable materials from the non-ferrous 
metals industry were recorded in 1987: France roughly 
20 000, Italy almost 30 000, and Switzerland about 
20 000. It is safe to assume that the number of move­
ments for other types of waste is many times higher. 
2.2.6. This leads to the conclusion that under the 
proposed Regulation the shipment of waste will be 
subject to far more red tape than under the present 
Directive and that this will have an adverse impact on 
waste processing. 
2.3. Notification system to be adapted 
2.3.1. The Committee has the following comments 
to make on the notification system. Strictly speaking, 
the term 'notification' implies that the 'notifier' need 
not await any reply in principle and—possibly after a 
certain period has elapsed—can go ahead with the 
proposed shipment. The notification system contained 
in the proposal operates in this way only for recyclable 
materials; otherwise it operates as a normal system of 
authorization. Articles 4 and 18 actually mention the 
word 'authorization' and the explanatory memor­
andum on page 7 talks about an authorization scheme. 
The Committee proposes letting the notification system 
operate as a genuine notification system for all waste, 
i.e. if the waste-disposal authorities do not respond 
within a specific period, the notifier can go ahead with 
the planned shipment. 
2.3.2. Article 4 provides further proof of how com­
plicated the proposal is and how it will weigh down 
both the authorities and the firms involved with paper­
work. At least two waste-disposal authorities—one at 
the destination and the other at the point of dis­
patch—will have to assess the notification of a planned 
waste shipment. Both will base their assessment on the 
same facts and circumstances referred to in paragraphs 
2,3 and 4. It may transpire in practice that one authority 
does not attach the same importance to a fact as the 
other, with the result that views may conflict or at least 
diverge. Such differences of opinion may lead to delays. 
Although the proposal lays down deadlines within 
which the competent authorities must reply to a notifi­
cation, it does not set any deadline for a decision to be 
taken in the event that an authority objects to a ship­
ment and the notifier defers to these objections. The 
Committee would urge that at all events a 
No C 269/12 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 10. 91 
procedure be established whereby the notifier can hold 
the authorities to fixed deadlines. This is also important 
for the possibility of appeal. 
2.4. Legal basis 
The Commission has chosen as the legal basis Treaty 
Articles 100a and 113, the latter having been chosen 
because of trade with third countries. With regard to 
Article 100a, the Committee would point out that in its 
Opinion of 14 December 1988 on the proposals for a 
Council Directive amending Directive 75/442/EEC on 
waste and for a Council Directive on hazardous waste 
it noted that Article 100a was not a sufficient basis and 
that Article 130s would be better. The Committee is 
pleased to note that the Council also opts for Article 
130s in its observations of 20-21 December 1990. 
2.5. Directive or Regulation 
The Commission proposes that the new rules be incor­
porated in a Regulation replacing the present Directive. 
It argues that this is more likely to guarantee simul­
taneous and uniform application in all the Member 
States than a Directive which does not enter into force 
simultaneously and whose implementation can also 
vary from one Member State to another. The Commit­
tee does not have any strong views about this, but 
thinks that if the choice falls on a regulation, the content 
of the Regulation should be clear and not open to 
differing interpretations, and should be consistent with 
related provisions such as the Directives on waste and 
hazardous waste. The present text docs not meet these 
conditions. The references in any Regulation to Mem­
ber State legislation based on these Directives will 
require special attention. 
2.6. In the Committee's view, trained personnel with 
an understanding of dangerous substances are required 
if this Regulation is to be applied properly. It therefore 
calls for attention to be given to training. 
3. Specific comments 
3.1. Article 1 
The Committee would refer to the recommendation 
which it made earlier, namely that the scope of the 
Regulation be restricted. 
3.2. Article 2(1) 
a) Different terms are used in sub-paragraphs (c) and 
(d) to describe the area of the competent authority. 
The Committee urges that one clear term be chosen. b) In the Committee's view the competent authority 
of transit should also be defined in addition to the 
competent authority of dispatch (c) and of desti­
nation (d). 
c) The 'consignee' referred to in (g) is obviously the 
last link in the transport chain. However, where 
waste is for recycling, he could also be an intermedi­
ary, e.g. a dealer or collector. The Article should be 
amplified to cover this. 
3.3. Article 2(2) 
3.3.1. The proposal excludes the collection of waste 
from retail trade establishments. The Committee 
assumes that this covers all establishments which supply 
the consumer, i.e. including department stores and 
supermarkets. The Committee proposes also excluding 
the waste from establishments which have individually 
or jointly made arrangements for the disposal of their 
waste, e.g. large establishments with a central system 
for processing the waste from their various branches. 
3.4. Article 3 
a) If the 'transit authority' referred to in Article 3(1) 
is in a Member State other than that of dispatch, it 
will be the single competent authority designated 
by a Member State under Article 24. For the sake 
of clarity, reference should be made to Article 24. 
b) The meaning of 'intermediary stage' in paragraph 2 
is not clear. If it covers different methods of pro­
cessing, storage and shipment, the text should state 
so. 
c) Paragraph 3 refers to a consignment note to be 
issued by the competent authority of dispatch. This 
is different from the document customarily used in 
goods transport to accompany shipments and also 
called a consignment note. Another name should be 
used to make it clear that this Article refers to a 
different document. 
d) Information provided by the Commission makes 
it clear that 'composition' in the first indent of 
paragraph 4 means not only the chemical compo­
sition but also the quantity of waste. For the sake 
of clarity, the text should indicate this. The meaning 
of 'detailed inventory' is also unclear. 
e) Under the second indent of paragraph 4 the notifier 
has to supply information concerning insurance 
against damage to third parties on the consignment 
note. According to information received from the 
Commission, this insurance is not obligatory. See 
also the comments on Article 15 in point 3.10. 
14. 10. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 269/13 
3.5. Article 4 
a) There is no appeal procedure if an authority does 
not reply to a notification, i.e. does not acknowledge 
receipt and/or does not refuse permission or take 
any of the other courses of action specified. 
Article 18 mentions only refusal as a ground for 
appeal. Under the proposed system, no reply should 
mean refusal. This problem does not arise in the 
amended notification system proposed by the Com­
mittee. the English version. In the Committee's view it is 
superfluous. 
c) The Committee notes that the text of the standard 
document referred to in 1 (a) is not available yet. 
d) The comments under d) in 3.4 also apply to the first 
indent of 1 b). 
e) The point made under c) in 3.2 also applies to the 
second indent of 1 b). 
b) In practice, incineration facilities in particular work 
with an on-call system which relies on a combi­
nation of certain wastes to achieve optimum com­
bustion. The Committee fears that this practice 
will cause problems for the implementation of the 
proposed notification system in which deadlines 
play an important part. 
c) In paragraph 3, the determining factor is to be the 
presence of a waste processing centre 'significantly 
nearer' than the one chosen by the notifier. The 
proposal states that the authorities are to take 
account of all relevant circumstances in their evalu­
ation, such as the geographical situation, the nature 
of the waste, the economic aspects of the operation, 
etc. The upshot may be that they come to a decision 
other than that which the notifier/producer believed 
to be in accordance with the relevant rules and with 
the economic factors which he had to take into 
account. This gives rise to two problems: the notifier 
incurs higher costs and there is a question as to who 
is responsible for any damage to the waste caused 
by the authority's decision; the notifier is normally 
responsible until the waste is transferred to the 
processor. The Committee would draw attention to 
these problems. 
3.6. Article 7 3.7. Article 9 
a) This Article contains an export ban on particular 
categories of waste, including to States which are 
not party to the Basel Convention. This ban could 
cause problems, especially in the period prior to 
accession, if there are no processing facilities (for a 
particular type of waste) in the Community. The 
Committee would draw attention to this problem. 
b) It is not clear whether the export ban refers only to 
hazardous waste. After all, it also covers waste 
collected from households (Annex IV). 
3.8. Article 11 
a) Similar problems to those mentioned in point 3.7 a) 
in respect of the export ban could be caused by the 
import ban contained in this Article. A delay or 
interruption in the supply of certain (recyclable) 
raw materials could result. Here too the Committee 
would ask that account be taken of such potential 
problems when the proposal is reviewed. 
b) In paragraph 8, not only the consignee but also, 
where appropriate, the carrier could be responsible 
for sending a copy of the consignment note to the 
notifier and the appropriate competent authorities. 
a) Waste which is intended for further use is covered 
by the general system unless a number of conditions 
are met. This approach does not enhance the clarity 
of the proposal. The Committee thinks that there 
should be a different set of arrangements for this 
waste contained in a separate chapter. In this, 
greater account should be taken of the fact that 
such waste is a tradable commodity for which the 
current market situation is an important factor. The 
proposed 15-day waiting period after the date of 
dispatch of the acknowledgement of receipt by the 
competent authority of destination could lead to 
considerable problems. 3.9. Article 14 
The carrier, as well as the notifier (paragraph 2) and 
the consignee (paragraph 3) may be guilty of illegal 
traffic; therefore it must be possible to oblige the carrier, 
too, to rectify the situation he has brought about. 
3.10. Article IS 
b) The significance of the word 'daadwerkelijk' (actu­
ally) in the Dutch version is not clear ('waste actu­
ally intended for further use'). It does not appear in This Article calls for security to be lodged for all 
shipments of waste with the exception of waste for 
further use. According to the Commission this is based 
No C 269/14 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 10. 91 
on the Basel Convention. The Committee would point 
out that Article 6(11) of the Convention offers a choice 
between insurance, security or guarantee. The Com­
mission has not given any reasons why it has opted for 
security in its proposal. In the Committee's view this 
clashes with the otherwise voluntary nature of the cover 
[see point 3.4 e)]. The Committee recommends that the 
options offered by the Basel Convention be incorpor­
ated in the Regulation and that details be worked out 
regarding the amount, implications and procedure for 
the various cover options. 
3.11. Article 18 
The Committe would reiterate that it must be possible 
to appeal in the event that the competent authority does 
not reply, unless, as suggested above, there is a switch 
from an authorization system in disguise to a genuine 
notification system. 
3.12. Article 21 
It is impossible to estimate—and therefore to judge— 
the sums involved in implementing the notification and 
supervision procedure, especially where the analysis 
and inspection costs are included. This Article should 
give an indication of the costs so that the notifier, to 
whom they are chargeable, has some idea. The present 
Directive includes a reference to practice in the Member 
States. This Regulation must at all events include such 
a reference. 
3.13. Article 24 
The Committee would refer to its comments in 2.2.4 
on the competent waste-disposal authorities in the 
Member States and the need for information on their 
areas, addresses and processing capacity. 
3.14. Article 30 
In line with the Directive on the harmonization of 
environmental reports, the Member States should be 
required to issue a report every three years rather than 
annually. 
Done at Brussels, 3 July 1991. 3.15. Articles 31 and 32 
With regard to these Articles, which concern the draw-
ing-up of various as yet uncompleted parts of the pro­
posal, the Committee would refer to its comments in 
2.1.2 and 2.1.3. Assuming that the Council attaches 
importance to the ESC's Opinion, the ESC expects the 
committee referred to in Article 32 to follow a pro­
cedure whereby the ESC is given the opportunity to 
complete its advisory task. 
3.16. Annex II A 
This Annex lists waste-disposal methods. The wording 
of D6 ('release of solid waste into a water body except 
seas/oceans') is unclear. The disposal referred to in D7 
('Release into seas/oceans including sea-bed insertion') 
is prohibited and it is questionable whether it belongs 
here. 
3.17. Annex IIB 
This Annex lists the operations which may lead to the 
recovery of waste. Rll concerns the use of residues 
obtained from use as a fuel or from spreading on 
the land for the benefit of agriculture or ecological 
improvement. In the Committee's view this is not waste. 
3.18. Annex V 
This Annex contains a list of hazardous characteristics. 
H12 refers to ecotoxic substances which, if released, 
cause or may cause immediate or delayed adverse 
impacts to the environment by means of bio-accumu­
lation and/or toxic effects upon biotic systems. In this 
connection the Committee notes that the term 'ecotoxic' 
requires a narrower and more precise definition, e.g. 
extremely or highly, because otherwise all waste, and 
also substances which are not waste, could be covered. 
For instance, salt is harmful to freshwater but not 
generally, while milk may be harmful to man and the 
environment if released into surface water, but in itself 
is useful and nutritious. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Francois STAEDELIN