Report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of Council Regulation (EEC) No 259/93 of 1 February 1993 on the supervision and control of shipments of waste within, into and out of the European Community - Generation, treatment and transboundary shipment of hazardous waste and other waste in the Member States of the European Union, 1997-2000 {SEC(2006) 1053}
Date: 2006-08-01
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: cross-border transport, environmental protection, export of waste, hazardous waste, international agreement, transport of dangerous goods, waste management

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 1.8.2006 
COM(2006) 430 final 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT 

on the implementation of Council Regulation (EEC) No 259/93 of 1 February 1993 on 
the supervision and control of shipments of waste within, into and out of the European 
Community 

Generation, treatment and transboundary shipment of hazardous waste and other waste 
in the Member States of the European Union, 1997-2000 

{SEC(2006) 1053} 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

Introduction .................................................................................................................. 4 

Generation of hazardous wastes................................................................................... 6 

Shipment of hazardous wastes out of Member States.................................................. 7 

Shipment of hazardous wastes into Member States..................................................... 9 

Summary .................................................................................................................... 10 

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REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT 

on the implementation of Council Regulation (EEC) No 259/93 of 1 February 1993 on 
the supervision and control of shipments of waste within, into and out of the European 
Community 

Generation, treatment and transboundary shipment of hazardous waste and other waste 
in the Member States of the European Union, 1997-2000

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SUMMARY REPORT: 
DEVELOPMENTS CONCERNING GENERATION, TREATMENT AND SHIPMENT OF 
HAZARDOUS WASTE AND OTHER WASTE IN THE EU MEMBER STATES 

1. 

INTRODUCTION 

Waste  exports  and  imports  are  governed  at  international  level  by  the  Basel  Convention  of 
22 March  1989  on  the  control  of  transboundary  movements  of  hazardous  wastes  and  their 
disposal.  The  European  Community  is  a  party  to  this  Convention  and  has  transposed  it  by 
Council  Regulation  (EEC)  No  259/931,  the  so-called  Waste  Shipment  Regulation.  In  force 
since May 1994, its purpose is to organise the supervision and control of shipments of wastes 
in a way which takes account of the need to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the 
environment. 

Based  on  the  guiding  principles  of  the  Community’s  strategy  on  waste  management,  in 
particular prevention, recovery and final disposal, the Regulation lays down a series of rules 
which should enable the Community as a whole to dispose of its own waste and the Member 
States individually to move towards that goal, taking into account geographical circumstances 
and the need for specialised installations to handle certain types of waste. 

The Regulation has introduced a number of measures for achieving control of the shipments 
of waste within, out of and into the Community. In particular: 

– 

– 

– 

it establishes common definitions and terminology concerning shipments of waste; 

it  lays  down  rules  for  the  export,  import,  and  transit  of  wastes  for  disposal  or 
recovery; 

it  specifies  the  information  which  the  Member  States  and  the  Commission  must 
supply. 

Article 41 of the Regulation lays down that: 

(1) 

(2) 

“Before  the  end  of  each  calendar  year,  Member  States  shall  draw  up  a  report  in 
accordance with Article 13(3) of the Basel Convention and send it to the Secretariat of 
the Basel Convention and a copy hereof to the Commission. 

The Commission shall, based on these reports, establish every three years a report on 
the  implementation  of  this  Regulation  by  the  Community  and  its  Member  States.  It 
may  request  to  this  end  additional  information  in  accordance  with  Article  6  of 
Directive 91/692/EEC.” 

Pursuant  to  their  obligation,  most  of  the  Member  States  have  sent  annual  reports  to  the 
Commission  on  the  supervision  and  control  of  shipments  of  waste.  Table  1  in  the  Annex 
shows  a  list  of  the  Member  States  who  submitted  the  Basel  Convention  report  to  the 

1 

Of 1  February  1993 on  the  supervision  and  control of  shipments  of waste  within,  into  and  out of  the 
European  Community,  OJ  L  30,  6.2.1993,  p.1,  last  amended  by  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No 
2557/2001 of 28 December 2001, OJ L 349, 31.12.2001, p. 1. 

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Commission.  This  table  does  not  reflect,  however,  to  which  extent  the  questionnaire  was 
filled in. Not every country has given all the information that was required. 

The questionnaire of the Basel Convention Secretariat includes questions on legal provisions, 
implementation, and measures of environmental protection. Triennially, the Commission must 
draw up a report containing the information supplied be the Member States. The report should 
make it possible to assess the extent to which the transboundary shipment of wastes is being 
controlled  throughout  the  Community.  In  this  case,  data  for  the  year  2000  have  also  been 
included where available. The delay in delivering this report is due to the fact that information 
from some Member States arrived very late, and to a concentration of human resources in the 
Commission  on  the  legislative  revision  of  the  Waste  Shipment  Regulation  during  the  years 
2002-2004. 

On  the  basis  of  Article  41(2),  the  Commission  in  1999  adopted  a  Decision2  requiring 
additional information to be supplied by Member States in the form of a questionnaire. The 
first  such  reports  should  have  covered  data  for  the  year  2000.  Information  from  that  source 
has not yet been integrated in this Commission Report but will be in the following one. 

It should be noted that the Basel Convention uses the terms “import” and “export” for every 
shipment in and out of an individual country that is Party to the Convention, whereas under 
EU  law  these  terms  apply  only  to  shipments  in  and  out  of  the  European  Union  as  a  whole. 
Shipments from one EU Member State  to another  will  therefore not be  called “import”  and 
“export” in the main part of this report. They do, however, appear in the Annexes in the sense 
as  used  in  the  Basel  Convention  where  they  refer  to  the  headings  of  the  Basel  Convention 
questionnaire. 

Furthermore,  it  should  be  taken  into  account  that  the  Waste  Shipment  Regulation  and  the 
Basel  Convention  have  differing  systems  of  waste  classification,  so  that  the  definitions  of 
hazardous waste and the types of waste that are subject to notification procedures are not quite 
the  same.  The  data  received  from  Member  States  pursuant  to  the  Basel  Convention  should 
therefore  not  be  taken  as  information  geared  to  the  purposes  of  the  Waste  Shipment 
Regulation.  They  will  be  used  in  this  report  to  sum  up  the  main  trends  in  generation, 
treatment, and transboundary shipment of hazardous waste and other waste in the EU Member 
States for the given period.  

In some cases, where data from Member States were corrected in later reports, this was taken 
into  account.  Where  a  Member  State  had  not  sent  the  required  information  to  the 
Commission, the gaps were filled, as far as possible and appropriate, with data from the study 
on “Global Trends” published by the Secretariat of the Basel Convention in 20023, and from 
the  statistics  of  Eurostat.4  This  has  remained  the  exception,  however,  as  the  database  of 
Eurostat  is  similarly  incomplete  and  focuses  on  different  aspects,  particularly  the  economic 
added  value  of  waste.  The  present  Summary  Report  presents  the  essential  results  of  the 
quantitative  data  that  were  reported  on  the  shipment  of  waste  to  and  from  the  EU  Member 
States. This comprises data on generation, import, export, and treatment of hazardous waste 
and other waste. In order to keep the Report itself brief and facilitate its distribution, all data 
tables and figures are to be found in Annex A. 

2 
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4 

Commission Decision 1999/412/EC of 3 June 1999, OJ L 156, 23.6.1999, p. 37. 
Basel Convention, Global Trends in Generation and Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes 
and Other Wastes, November 2002 (Basel Convention series/SBC No. 02/14). 
European Commission (Eurostat), Waste generated and treated in Europe. Data 1990-2001, 2003. 

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Annex  B  contains  the  information  on  implementation  and  compliance  with  the  Basel 
Convention  and  the  Waste  Shipment  Regulation.  This  part  will  not  present  all  replies 
submitted to the Basel Convention Secretariat by the Member States, as they often describe 
the  same  legal  or  factual  situation.  This  is  especially  the  case  for  questions  covered  by  EU 
legislation where the rules are more or less identical for all Member States. In these cases a 
general reference to the EU Regulation is made. 

2. 

GENERATION OF HAZARDOUS WASTES 

In  the  Basel  Convention  questionnaires  for  the  years  1997-2000  all  countries  were  asked  to 
provide information on the total amount of hazardous wastes and “other wastes” generated in 
the respective year. “Other wastes” in this context means wastes collected from households, 
and  residues  arising  from  the  incineration  of  household  wastes,  two  categories  of  wastes 
requiring  special  consideration  and  being  subject  to  similar  controls  as  hazardous  wastes 
under  the  Basel  Convention  (they  are  known  as  entries  Y46  and  Y47,  respectively). 
Hazardous  wastes  are  defined  according  to  a  list  of  waste  streams  and/or  constituents 
(Annex I  to  the  Convention,  entries  Y1-18  and  Y19-45,  respectively)5  and  certain  hazard 
characteristics  (Annex  III).  However,  if  waste  is  considered  as  hazardous  by  the  domestic 
legislation  of  an  export,  import  or  transit  state,  it  also  falls  under  that  definition  for  the 
purposes of the Convention. 

14 Member States have supplied information on total generation of hazardous waste for one 
or  more  years  in  their  reports  to  the  Commission  while  the  data  for  Luxembourg  had  to  be 
supplemented  from  the  statistics  of  the  Basel  Convention  Secretariat.  The  data  on  waste 
generation  provided  by  Member  States  in  their  reports  were,  however,  in  most  cases 
fragmentary, and few countries could present unbroken timelines (cf. Annex A, Figures 1 and 
2). 

According  to  these  reports,  Germany  had  the  largest  quantities  of  hazardous  waste  (13-15 
million  tonnes  per  year),  while  the  UK,  Spain  and  France  came  next  between  2.6  and  6.3 
million  tonnes).  In  terms  of  waste  generation  per  capita,  Germany,  the  Netherlands  and 
Belgium  were  at  the  top  of  the  list,  whereas  the  lowest  quantities  were  recorded  in  Greece, 
Portugal and France (cf. Annex A, Figure 2).  

The  available  data  for  the  years  under  review  indicate  an  increase  of  about  10  %  in  the 
amount of hazardous waste generated within the Community as a whole, from ca. 36 million 
tonnes in 1997 to just over 40 million tonnes in 2000. This is mirrored by developments in 
some  Member  States,  such  as  Germany,  France,  Italy  and  Spain,  whereas  the  quantity  of 
hazardous  waste  has  risen  more  significantly  in  the  United  Kingdom,  Finland  and  Austria. 
Such developments do not necessarily, however, reflect a real growth of waste production, but 
are  related  also  to  changes  in  the  national  definition  or  lists  of  hazardous  waste  (e.g.  for 
Austria  in  1998).  In  the  Netherlands,  after  a  marked  increase  between  1994  and  1997,  the 
generation of hazardous waste has dropped to some extent in the following years. 

As  regards  the  categories  of  hazardous  waste  according  to  the  Y-codes  used  by  the  Basel 
Convention,  information  was  supplied  by  only  9  Member  States.  Wastes  collected  from 
households  (Y46)  and  residues  arising  from  the  incineration  of  household  wastes  (Y47) 

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See Annex D to this Report. 

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represented  the  major  part  of  the  waste  reported.  They  were  also  the  only  non-hazardous 
waste types reported to the Commission in accordance with the Waste Shipment Regulation. 
The Netherlands stated in their report that waste quantities corresponding to about 20% of the 
total amount were contaminated soil and another 15-20% ship-cleaning waste. 

3. 

SHIPMENT OF HAZARDOUS WASTES OUT OF MEMBER STATES 

in  order 

treatment  facilities 

Not  all  Member  States  of  the  European  Union  have  sufficient  capacity  to  deal  with  all 
categories  of  waste  generated  on  their  territory.  Some  specific  waste  streams  –  including 
hazardous  wastes  –  require  specialised 
to  ensure  an 
environmentally sound recovery or disposal. Therefore, transboundary shipment of hazardous 
waste between the EU Member States is not only an environmental issue, but reflects the fact 
that  European  waste  management  systems  have  reached  an  advanced  level,  which  includes 
cooperation  between  Member  States  on  treatment  of  specific  waste  streams.  All  Member 
States  have  submitted  information  on  outbound  shipment  (“exports”  in  the  Basel  sense)  of 
hazardous waste for at least two years within the period 1997-2000 (see Annex A, Table 5). 
By  adding  the  figures  and  extrapolating  some  data  it  was  possible  to  estimate  the  trend  in 
hazardous  waste  shipment  out  of  Member  States  in  1997-2000.  The  quantity  more  than 
doubled from about 2.6 million tonnes in 1997 to 5.4 million tonnes in 2000. A particularly 
sharp rise took place from 1999 to 2000. 

The biggest “exporters” of such waste were Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Nearly 
¾  of  the  waste  shipped  out  of  Member  States  in  1999  originated  from  one  of  these  three 
countries. Shipment out of the UK, Spain and France was, according to the figures, among the 
lowest in the EU. 

The same is true for the outbound shipment of waste in kg per capita: Among the six countries 
with  the  lowest  “export”  per  capita  were  the  UK,  Spain,  Italy  and  France  (cf.  Annex  A, 
Table 6).  At  the  other  end  of  the  scale,  Luxembourg,  the  Netherlands  and  Belgium  had  the 
largest  quantities  of  waste  per  capita  moved  across  borders.  This  indicates  that  smaller 
countries ship more of their hazardous waste abroad as they do not have the same coverage of 
treatment facilities on their territory as the larger countries.  

Concerning the share of hazardous waste that was shipped for treatment to other countries - 
mostly  neighbouring  Member  States  -,  the  calculated  figures  vary  between  0  and  25  % 
(Annex A, Figure 6). The percentage was highest in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Portugal, 
which is comprehensible in the sense that they are all smaller countries without possibility to 
establish  treatment  capacity  for  all  hazardous  waste  types  inside  their  own  borders.  The 
percentage of waste shipped abroad was low in the UK, Greece and Spain. In this context it 
should  be  stressed  that  there  are  considerable  uncertainties  involved  with  the  data  because 
they  were  calculated  combining  Member  States’  reported  figures  on  generation  and  export, 
respectively, which are not necessarily compatible. 

The information on notified shipments of “other waste” in the sense of the Basel Convention 
did not show large amounts of such waste - mixed household waste and incineration residues - 
being  moved  from  Member  States  to  other  countries  in  the  relevant  period.  Only  the 
Netherlands,  Denmark  and  Portugal  reported  shipments  in  this  category  amounting  to  more 
than  10  %  of  the  quantity  of  hazardous  waste  indicated  for  any  given  year  (Annex  A, 
Table 8). 

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As  regards  the  categories  of  hazardous  waste  in  terms  of  the  Y-codes  under  the  Basel 
Convention, it must be pointed out that many Member States did not specify these categories 
(see Annex A, Figure 9: “unknown”) or used a mixture of Y-codes (“mix”). The reason for 
this  is  partly  that  Member  States  registered  hazardous  waste  according  to  OECD  codes 
without necessarily using Y-codes too. Another reason is that some of the wastes reported do 
not have a Y-code because they are not covered by the Basel Convention. 

In  the  Annex  (A,  Figure  10),  data  were  added  from  10  Member  States  with  information  on 
outbound waste shipments assigned to Y-codes. It is noticeable that the considerable rise in 
tonnage shipped across borders from 1997 to 2000 was to a large degree due to “unknown” 
waste without Y-codes. Prominent among these are, for example, mixed wood waste shipped 
from  Germany  to  Italy  and  waste  from  the  production  of  iron  and  steel  transported  from 
Germany to France. 

The major part of the hazardous waste and other waste shipped out of Member States in the 
years under review was treated in some kind of recovery operation. In 2000, about 4.5 million 
tonnes of waste (more than 80%) from 10 countries were recovered in this way (cf. Annex A, 
Figure 11). By absolute numbers, this fraction more than doubled since 1997. The shipments 
of  waste  for  disposal  out  of  Member  States also  doubled  in  the  same  period,  but  at  a  much 
lower level – from 400,000 tonnes to 900,000 tonnes. 

The  data  collected  show  huge  differences  between  Member  States  in  the  percentage  of 
outbound waste shipments destined for recovery or disposal (see Annex A, Figure 12). From 
countries  like  Austria,  Belgium,  Finland,  France,  Germany,  Greece,  Luxembourg,  the 
Netherlands  and  the  UK  more  than  70%  of  the  waste  shipped  abroad  went  to  recovery 
facilities, while at the other end of the scale the share was only 10% in Portugal. In a middle 
group, consisting of Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Sweden, the share of waste shipments 
for recovery lay between 40 and 60%. 

It is not possible to draw conclusions on the waste management systems in the countries only 
by looking at the share of exported waste going to recovery and disposal, as most of the waste 
in question was treated in the same country in which it was generated (cf. Annex A, Figure 6). 

The  EU  Waste  Shipment  Regulation  states  that  Member  States  are  allowed  to  export 
hazardous waste only to a limited group of countries. Hazardous waste for recovery may be 
exported  to  all  countries  to  which  the  OECD  Decision6  applies.  The  initial  possibility  to 
export  also  to  other  countries  which  are  Parties  of  the  Basel  Convention,  or  with  which 
Member States have concluded bilateral agreements, was abolished by the entry into force of 
the so-called “Basel ban” on 1 January 1998. Waste for disposal may even be shipped only to 
other  EU  Member  States  and  EFTA  countries  (Norway,  Switzerland,  Iceland  and 
Liechtenstein).  Thus,  exports  of  waste  for  disposal  to  non-EU/EFTA  countries  and  of 
hazardous  waste  for  recovery  to  non-OECD  countries  are  prohibited  under  the  Waste 
Shipment Regulation. 

In  their  reports  to  the  Basel  Secretariat  the  EU  Member  States  provide  information  on  the 
country  of  destination  for  exported  hazardous  waste.  According  to  these  reports,  the 
increasing quantities of hazardous waste and other waste shipped across borders from 1997-

6 

Decision  C(92)39/FINAL  of  the  OECD  Council  of  30  March  1992  on  the  control  of  transfrontier 
movements  of  wastes  destined  for  recovery  operations;  later  replaced  by  OECD  Decision 
C(2001)107/FINAL of 14 June 2001. 

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2000  went  in  their  large  majority  to  other  EU  Member  States.  In  1997  the  percentage  was 
84%,  rising  to  91%  in  the  year  2000  (see  Annex  A,  Figures  13  and  14).  This  means  that 
Member  States  increasingly  followed  the  principles  of  proximity  and  self-sufficiency  with 
regard to the disposal and recovery of hazardous and other notified wastes. The percentage of 
waste exported to countries outside EU/EFTA decreased from 11% in 1997 to 5% in 2000.  

The countries exporting waste to non-OECD countries in 2000 were Germany, Italy and the 
Netherlands.  In  the  case  of  Germany,  this  concerned  primarily  various  kinds  of  packaging 
materials for recovery, Italy exported mixed household waste, and the Netherlands specified 
their waste export as Y18 and Y23, mixed household waste and plastic waste. Export of these 
waste  types  to  non-OECD  countries,  if  properly  notified,  are  not  illegal  according  to  the 
Shipment Regulation. 

4. 

SHIPMENT OF HAZARDOUS WASTES INTO MEMBER STATES 

As part of their reports to the Basel Convention Secretariat, all Member States have submitted 
information on the import of hazardous waste for one or more years within the period 1997-
2000  (see  Annex  A,  Table  16).  Although  the  data  are  not  quite  complete,  it  is  possible  to 
estimate  the  overall  trend  of  hazardous  waste  shipping  into  Member  States  for  the  given 
period:  In  parallel  to  the  development  of  shipments  out  of  Member  States,  the  quantity  of 
hazardous waste shipped in the other direction has more than doubled from about 2.3 million 
tonnes in 1997 to 5.2 million tonnes in 2000. Most of this increase again took place between 
1999 and 2000. The figures are very similar to those for the “exports” of waste, indicating that 
the major part of the shipments took place between Member States. 

The EU countries with the largest quantities of waste taken from abroad were Germany, Italy, 
Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Their share of the total waste shipped to EU Member 
States rose from 82% in 1997 to 88% in 1999 and 2000. Germany, Italy and Belgium alone 
accounted for 50% of total “imports” in 1997 and 67% in 2000. The countries with the lowest 
volume of inbound shipments were Ireland, Portugal and Greece. 

Looking at the shipments of waste per capita to Member States, the numbers tend to be higher 
in small countries than in big ones (cf. Annex A, Figure 16). The reason for this may be that 
the treatment facilities for hazardous waste in small countries are more dependent on import 
of waste from other countries, due to the limited size of their home market. 

The shipment into Member States of mixed household waste and incineration residues (“other 
waste”  in  the  sense  of  the  Basel  Convention)  generally  did  not  add  much  to  the  amount  of 
hazardous  waste  that  was  moved  in  the  same  period.  Only  Germany  and  the  Netherlands 
reported  significant  “imports”  of  such  waste,  which  in  some  years  nearly  equalled  the 
quantities of hazardous waste that entered these countries from abroad (cf. Annex A, Tables 
16  and  18).  Mixed  household  waste  originated  in  both  cases  mainly  from  Belgium,  while 
incineration  residues  shipped  to  Germany  came  also  from  several  other  neighbouring 
countries, especially the Netherlands, Switzerland and Denmark. 

Concerning  the  categories  of  hazardous  waste  shipped  to  Member  States  according  to  Y-
codes, it must again be pointed out that for a large part of the waste no Y-code was declared 
(see Annex A, Figure 19: “unknown”) or the waste was placed in a group of mixed Y-codes 
(“mix”). The data from the 10 Member States with more precise Y-code information (Austria, 
Belgium,  Denmark,  Finland,  France,  Germany,  the  Netherlands,  Spain,  Sweden,  and  the 

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United Kingdom) show that in the period 1997 to 2000 the largest increase took place in the 
group of “unknown” waste. In 2000,  almost half of the waste was not assigned to Y-codes. 
The German report for that year mentions as the largest single waste streams in this category 
construction and demolition waste from Luxembourg, and mixed wood waste and agricultural 
waste from the Netherlands. Belgium does not specify which type of waste is meant here, but 
only  indicates  that  the  waste  went  to  various  kinds  of  recovery  and  disposal  operations, 
including landfill and incineration. In Italy the main waste stream received - much larger than 
any of the Y-listed categories - was treated waste wood from Germany, Switzerland and the 
Benelux countries. 

The  major  part  of  the  hazardous  waste  and  other  waste  shipped  into  Member  States  was 
treated  in  recovery  operations.  About  4  million  tonnes  of  waste  (or  80%)  from  the  10 
countries  which  supplied  specific  Y-code  information  were  recovered  in  2000  (Annex  A, 
Figure 21). This is more than twice the amount in 1997. The inbound shipments of hazardous 
waste for disposal also doubled in the same period, but at a much lower level – from 400,000 
tonnes to 900,000 tonnes. 

The available data show some variations between Member States as regards the percentage of 
waste taken in for recovery or for disposal. In Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, 
Sweden  and  the  UK  more  than  80%  of  the  waste  coming  from  abroad  was  destined  for 
recovery,  while  it  was  about  60%  in  Austria  and  Spain,  and  apparently  less  than  20%  in 
Luxembourg (cf. Annex A, Figure 22). For Luxembourg this may be due to the fact that the 
main treatment facility there is an incineration plant for municipal waste. 

The Waste Shipment Regulation allows Member States to import waste only from a limited 
group of countries. Waste for recovery may be imported from all countries that are members 
of the OECD or Parties to the Basel Convention or with which multi- or bilateral agreements 
have been concluded. Waste for disposal may be imported into the Community from EFTA 
countries (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein), other countries that are Parties to 
the  Basel  Convention  or  for  which  multi-  or  bilateral  agreements  exist.  Thus,  there  are 
restrictions  of  waste  imports  into  the  Community,  but  they  are  far  less  strict  than  those  on 
exports. 

In  their  reports  to  the  Basel  Convention  Secretariat,  the  Member  States  have  provided 
information  on  the  country  of  origin  of  the  imported  hazardous  waste.  According  to  these 
reports,  88-90%  of  the  hazardous  waste  shipped  to  Member  States  within  the  period  1997-
2000 came from other Member States (cf. Annex A, Figures 23 and 24). The percentage of 
waste imported from countries outside EU/EFTA was about 3-4%.  

In  2000  Denmark,  Portugal  and  Ireland  were  the  only  Member  States  that  did  not  import 
waste from non-OECD countries. 

5. 

SUMMARY 

On the basis of the reports received from the Member States the following conclusions can be 
reached: 

•  Member States have generally submitted sufficient information in respect to types of waste 
treatment  and  country  of  origin/destination.  However,  data  were  fragmentary  concerning 

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waste categories and total generation of hazardous waste. This has to be taken into account 
when interpreting the data in the Annex to this Report. 

•  The  quantities  of  hazardous  waste  generated  in  the  Community  as  a  whole  increased  by 
about 10 % between 1997 and 2000, reaching a level of about 40 million tonnes per year. 
Part of this, however, is due to changes in the national definition of hazardous waste.  

•  Only  a  minor  part  of  the  total  hazardous  waste  generated  in  the  Member  States  was 
shipped across borders – between 0 and 25%. The main part was treated inside the country. 

•  Shipments in and out of Member States nevertheless increased rapidly in the years under 
review.  The  quantity  of  “exports”  more  than  doubled  from  about  2.6  million  tonnes  in 
1997 to 5.4 million tonnes in 2000, with a parallel rise in “imports” from 2.3 to 5.2 million 
tonnes. 

•  About  90%  of  the  hazardous  waste  shipped  into  Member  States  originated  from  other 
Member  States.  Accordingly,  90%  of  the  waste  shipped  across  borders  went  to  other 
Member States. 

•  More than 80% of the hazardous waste shipped in or out of Member States was destined to 

recovery operations. 

EN 

11 

   EN