Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the 'Proposal for a Council Directive on the landfill of waste` (97/C 244/03)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the Commission proposal to the Council [COM(97) 105 final - 97/0085 (SYN)] ();

having regard to the decision taken by the European Commission on 10 March 1997 to consult the Economic and Social Committee on the matter;

having regard to its decision on 11 June 1997, under the third paragraph of Article 198c of the Treaty establishing the European Community, to draw up an opinion and to direct Commission 5 - Land-use Planning, Environment and Energy - to draw up the relevant opinion;

having regard to the draft opinion (CdR 112/97 rev.) adopted by Commission 5 on 6 May 1997 (rapporteur: Mr Mikkelsen);

having regard to the Opinion on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the review of the Community strategy for waste management, adopted by the Committee of the Regions on 16 January 1997 (),

adopted the following opinion at its 18th plenary session on 11 and 12 June 1997 (meeting of 11 June).

Introduction

1. On 22 July 1991, further to the Council Resolution of 7 May 1990 in which the Council called on the Commission to put forward proposals to regulate the landfill of waste, the Commission presented a proposal for a directive on this subject. The draft directive, after lengthy negotiations and numerous amendments, was rejected by the European Parliament on 22 May 1996. In the light of this situation, the Commission has put forward this new revised draft directive.

2. The draft directive which is based in a number of respects on the earlier proposal, puts forward guidelines for the starting up, operation and after-care of landfills. It also lays down guidelines for existing landfills. However, the new proposal contains a number of provisions which increase the level of environmental protection, as recommended by the European Parliament among others.

Comments on the draft directive

3. The Committee of the Regions sees the new landfill proposal as filling a gap in existing EU legislation on waste. It therefore welcomes the Commission's initiative which, in its revised form, would seem to recognize the need to take problems resulting from landfill of waste seriously because of the potential major risks to both the human and natural environment.

4. Local and regional authorities exercise broad responsibilities (administration, monitoring and operation) for landfill sites. The current proposal is therefore of crucial importance to them.

5. The Committee of the Regions is pleased to observe that the draft directive is anchored in Article 130s of the Treaty. In its view, the proposed provisions must, in accordance with the legal basis opted for, constitute minimum rules so as to allow for the individual regions' differing starting points. They must be accompanied by the introduction of adequate financial instruments to ensure that all regions attain the minimum common standards required.

6. The Committee of the Regions agrees with the Commission that operation of waste landfill sites should respect a standardized minimum level of environmental protection. It endorses the Commission's belief that it will be possible in this connection to limit incentives to transport waste to faraway sites.

7. The Committee of the Regions supports the idea that landfill use charges should take account of all direct and indirect costs involved in the operation of the site, including the costs of closure and after-care. The necessary financial security should therefore be required for both new and existing landfills. However, the Committee does not feel that the recommended measures satisfy the aim of a 'level playing field`. Socio-economic as well as geological factors make it inevitable that justified differences will persist in landfill charges from one region of the Community to another. Both the proximity and self-sufficiency principles in matters of waste landfill must therefore be highlighted and suitable instruments found to ensure these principles' consistent enforcement and guarantee that landfill of waste can be controlled in keeping with the subsidiarity principle.

8. Experience has shown that the local and regional authorities are frequently left with the responsibility of abandoned landfill sites and the costs involved in after-care and possible clean-up after an environmentally unacceptable landfill. It is significant that the required financial security is to cover the entire after-care period. However, in the Committee of the Regions' view, landfills should be set up and operated so that the after-care period does not exceed the life of one generation, or 30 years. At the same time, the Committee of the Regions stresses the need for solutions to problems arising from past landfill.

9. The Committee of the Regions agrees with the need for new, more stringent, regulations for the installation, operation and rehabilitation of landfill sites in order to achieve better and uniform environmental protection. But the proposed directive contains vague and generalized statements which do not facilitate achievement of this objective. The Committee of the Regions feels that the directive should include concrete specifications for the construction and operation of landfill sites and should indicate measures for minimizing nuisance and hazards, as well as the limits for pollutant emissions, noise levels and the physico-chemical deterioration of environmental elements (e.g. soil, water etc.). It also advocates a reduction in the large number of exclusions granted under the provisions and annexes of the directive. However, the Committee of the Regions would stress that even the best installation and container methods do not last for ever; hence the prioritization of waste disposal methods which avoid landfill wherever possible must be highlighted. At the same time, this situation argues for placing greater emphasis on a waste landfill stabilization strategy in relation to a container strategy.

10. The Committee of the Regions observes with pleasure that the Commission intends to take effective action to curb the emission of greenhouse gases from landfill sites and therefore instantly welcomes the proposals concerning gases from discharge sites and restrictions on the landfill of biodegradable waste. In its earlier Opinion on the reform of the Community strategy for waste management the Committee of the Regions pointed to the need to establish quality criteria for the waste deposited as a prerequisite for restricting waste landfills.

11. In the view of the Committee of the Regions, the collection and burning of gas from landfill sites can be an effective method in many cases of restricting greenhouse gases from sites accepting biodegradable waste. However, restrictions on the discharge of biodegradable waste in landfills would seem a more far-sighted and appropriate solution to problems and would result in an immediate, tangible improvement in landfill-linked pollution.

12. The Committee of the Regions feels that the clause requiring collection and treatment of gas on existing landfill sites is highly ambitious and potentially extremely expensive. An assessment of gas production at the specific landfill site is therefore to be recommended before such investment is made.

13. The Committee of the Regions observes that obligations to reduce landfill of biodegradable waste is limited to municipal waste (see Article 5 of the proposed directive). The Committee of the Regions finds this unacceptable as the costs involved in reducing greenhouse gases would then be borne solely by the citizen and the local and regional authorities. It would therefore recommend that the required limitation of biodegradable waste be extended to encompass all waste sources.

14. The Committee of the Regions would point out that the proposed directive does not contain any indications as to how the required reduction is to be achieved. In its view, reduction of the quantities of biodegradable waste disposed of in landfills must be a specific priority of the waste system as a whole. This includes coordinated waste management, planning and adequate instruments which local and regional authorities can draw.

15. Since landfill of waste is to be regarded as the last resort and such sites must therefore be limited as far as possible, the Committee of the Regions would stress that the operation of landfills according to market-led principles conflicts with these social and economic considerations. It must therefore be anticipated that landfills will lack the incentive to limit further waste deposits.

16. In the view of the Committee of the Regions, the indicated waste classification can only be observed if responsibility for landfill sites is largely transferred to the local and regional authorities, which will then be able to incorporate them into their waste management planning and make allowance for the necessary socio- and economic considerations.

17. The Committee of the Regions accepts, and supports, the broad definition of prior treatment used in the draft Directive (see Article 6). However, the Committee recognizes that in certain Member States, where pre-treatment of waste going to landfill is less common there may be a need for financial support measures, at least in the short term, to prevent onerous cost burdens being placed on local government. In its view, the inclusion and encouragement of sorting, including sorting according to source, will ensure that the chosen solutions meet the criteria set out in the 1996 revised waste strategy, besides guaranteeing that the rules on mandatory prior treatment can be applied flexibly. However, the Committee of the Regions is opposed to extending the rules concerning mandatory prior treatment to homogeneous quantities of waste which cannot be recycled.

18. The Committee of the Regions observes that the Commission wishes to ban the disposal of used tyres in landfills (see Article 5 of the draft directive). It agrees with the proposal but would point out that local and regional authorities should not be made responsible for enforcing such a ban before the requisite instruments and processing plant are in place. However, the Committee of the Regions considers that it will continue to be necessary to dispose of used tyres in landfills until the requisite processing capacity exists. To ensure that tyres deposited in landfills during the interim period can also be recycled they should be dumped on a special site.

19. The Committee of the Regions agrees with the proposed fixing of landfill costs and with the idea that the closure and after-care costs should be covered by the landfill charges levied. It therefore also endorses the requirement of a financial security to cover the landfill's after-care.

20. The Committee of the Regions can accept the proposed ban on unselective discharge of waste in landfills. In its view, it is impossible to predict the physical and chemical environment of a landfill site sufficiently accurately to be sure that such unselective disposal will not involve potential major risks for both the human and natural environment.

21. The Committee of the Regions observes that in future the distance of landfill sites from recreational areas, water zones and agriculture, will be regulated. It agrees that in future permits should be not issued for the setting-up of landfills that could cause major lasting nuisance to the surroundings. However, the Committee of the Regions finds it unacceptable to establish a stringent limit on the landfill's distance from recreational areas, water zones and agriculture. The proposed requirements would in many cases prevent landscaping and appropriate use of such sites after they have ceased to be used. The Committee of Regions would point out that landfills should be set up so that they can, once they are no longer in use be incorporated as a valuable, natural component of the surrounding countryside. Accordingly, technical solutions should be deployed to deal with any immediate nuisance caused to the specified zones while the landfill is in use.

22. The Committee of the Regions notes that a particularly detailed procedure is suggested for acceptance of waste at discharge sites (see Article 11 of the proposal). Though it agrees on the importance of ensuring that such waste complies with the relevant landfill site category, the Committee of the Regions feels that it is important to restrict the scope of the classification procedure, which potentially involves a large analysis effort. It would therefore recommend, as part of the projected standardization work, the identification of a number of categories whereby waste is classified according to its origin and known composition and properties.

23. The Committee of the Regions is able to support the obligation on existing landfill sites to restrict pollution (see Article 14 of the proposal). Existing discrepancies in landfill charges will then also be limited. However, the Committee of the Regions would point out that many existing landfills will find it very expensive to attain an environment protection level comparable to that required for new sites. To avoid the local and regional authorities being forced to shoulder an unreasonable share of these costs, provision must be made for adequate financial instruments to offset these charges.

24. The Committee of the Regions observes that many of the criticisms levelled against the previous draft directive by the European Parliament have been heeded. It applauds this move, including the limitation of possible exemptions to the directive (see Article 3). The Committee of the Regions recalls that such limitation on derogation is a prerequisite for achieving a more standardized level of protection. However, it would point out that a number of peripheral regions will experience serious problems in the immediate future in satisfying the Directive's requirements. Hence reasonable conditions of implementation are necessary for these regions. The Committee of the Regions reiterates that financial instruments to meet these regions' needs must be introduced urgently. It notes nonetheless that a number of non-organic waste products are now increasingly used in an environmentally compatible manner without causing a nuisance to the surroundings. In its view, the proposed directive must not impede environmentally-friendly recycling with the result that products that could be recycled are dumped in landfills.

25. The Committee of the Regions notices that several provisions regarding the finalization of conditions regarding, for instance, the setting-up of landfill sites are subject to the committee procedure specified in Articles 16 and 17 of the draft Directive. Bearing in mind this directive's major implications for local and regional authorities, the Committee of the Regions feels that these authorities should be represented on the committee. This would also enable the committee to benefit from local and regional authority experiences in dealing with practical problems in this connection.

Brussels, 11 June 1997.

The Chairman of the Committee of the Regions

Pasqual MARAGALL i MIRA

() OJ C 116, 14. 4. 1997, p. 74.

() OJ C 156, 24. 5. 1997, p. 10.