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Member States representatives, high level EU policy officers and stakeholders met in Brussels for two days on the 9–10 June this year in order to discuss the need for a specific EU legislation on biowaste. The conference – organized by the German and Czech Ministries of Environment, the Public Waste Agency of Flanders, OVAM, and the EU Commission’s Environment Directorate-General – took place in the Permanent Representation of Germany in Brussels. More than 200 participants from 23 European Union countries and Croatia, and 30 presentations, created an extensive platform to discuss the biowaste legislation issue and development on a European level.
As a follow up to the revised Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) in 2008 the Commission was requested to evaluate the need for a specific biowaste legislation for the end of the year 2009. So the event was just in time to get feedback from all parties concerned in this evaluation period. The evaluation process started in spring with a Green Paper on Biowaste and has followed on with an Impact Assessment (IA) of a potential biowaste legislation which will be completed by a cost-benefit-analysis by the end of the year. The responses of Member States and stakeholders on the Green Paper’s questionnaire and the IA’s baseline scenarios were part of the given presentations and a core element of the discussions during the conference.
Opinions from the conference
In his introduction, Jos Delbeke, Deputy Director-General for the Environment pointed out to the Commission that during the past few years waste management has successfully developed, due to avoidance and reduction targets, towards a modern recycling and resource management approach.
EU Member States have varying strategies when compared with the legislation and policy activities of the Commission. They are partly more and partly less successful with their implementation activities. Therefore, when the Commission looks at current strategy it is important to apply the given legal instruments, improve the implementation and to enlarge their existing legal possibilities first before new directives, like a Biowaste Directive, can be created. This view is in line with the approach that was expressed by the Swedish Naturwardsverket.
The Biowaste Coalition
Lack of implementation is not seen as an argument for a new directive on biowaste by the MEP Frieda Brepoels. She believes that the decision is the responsibiltiy of the Member States and they agreed several times in council decisions. In this respect, the Biowaste Coalition, a group of 11 member states, has asked for legislative measures on biowaste in a position paper in the form of an EU-wide stand alone biowaste directive with clear targets and standards for input materials, process requirements and output material. This has the potential to act as a driver for recycling and improve the quantity and quality of biowaste recycling. The final question of the coalition was – why shouldn’t we use the experience of other states that have addressed and solved problem?
The need for legal certainty as a core element of national recycling policy was shown by the example of Ireland and the Czech Republic. Only an EU legislative framework will give continuity in policy, despite changes in national governments, and will attract attention of the recycling industry and the banks for investment. The latter is a core issue in this current economic climate which is troublesome.
Is flexibility the key?
Municipal Waste Europe and the Committee of Regions claimed the need for flexibility for the implementing municipalities and argued against a prescriptive EU legislation. Examples from other speakers showed that although biowaste management on a local level differs greatly in Europe, the different systems also work quite well – with central very large-scale solutions in the Netherlands, decentralized on-farm systems in Austria, mainly anaerobic digestion in Sweden and purely composting of the biowaste in Italy.
Nevertheless, a European biowaste legislation would intended to give a framework for the whole sector and to promote the larger industry without limiting local developments. The European Compost Network argued only solutions specifically adapted to the local situation have been a success in the past. It underlined the need for legislation to give the ‘regulatory push’ on biowaste recycling. When this push is given then the ‘market pull’, with a demand for high quality compost and digestate controlled in a quality assurance scheme, will follow.
The Biowaste Alliance
A number of significant stakeholders’ associations with industrial, municipal and environmental members (including ACR plus Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling; EBA - European Biogas Association; ECN – European Compost Network; EEB – European Environmental Bureau; FEAD – European Federation of Waste Management; ISWA – International Solid Waste Association; RREUSE – Reuse and Recycling European Union Social Enterprises) collaborating in the Biowaste Alliance, expressed in their presentations the need for European-wide legislation covering the treatment of biowaste. Their aim is to see the full benefits of sound biowaste management for soil, climate and resource protection purposes, as well as helping Member States fulfil the organic waste diversion targets of the Landfill Directive.
 European biowaste legislation can lead to acceptance of quality compost and recycling of biowaste by European citizens. Credit: Informa, Oelde, Germany |
The scientific background was highlighted, too. A German Life Cycle Assessment, LCA by IFEU, showed the advantageous results of anaerobic digestion and of composting of source-separated biowaste. It pointed out the limitations of the current LCA methodology in not considering the soil-related benefits of compost, which was confirmed by the European Commission LCA Team. The Commission’s Joint Research Centre JRC clearly expressed in its contribution the need for, and benefits of, high quality composts for the improvement of European soils to fulfil the European Soil Protection Strategy.
Green Paper – a difference of opinion
A summary of the 135 ‘Green Paper on Biowaste’ responses and statements from stakeholders and 17 Member States were presented by Bartosz Zambrzycki, Biowaste Officer in the Commission’s DG Environment. He pointed out the broad spectrum of partly-contradictory replies which make it difficult to evaluate the outcome i.e. there were answers for and against measures for biowaste avoidance. In addition, the lack of EU-wide uniform definition of biowaste impedes the evaluation. So the results of the Green Paper responses didn’t give a clear picture, but an idea of trends to be considered in the EU’s decision-making process.
Impact Assessment – first results
In the final session the Consultancy Aracadis Belgium, presented the first part of the assessment of the ecological, economical and social impacts of a potential biowaste legislation. It showed baseline scenarios on the development in the EU27 until 2020 based on different policy options set into force by the Commission. Together with the cost-benefit analysis, this scientific study will be used by the Commission as scientific background for its decision in late autumn 2009 on the need for a European biowaste legislation. All assumptions in this study are based on the assumption that the EU Landfill Directive diversion targets for organics from landfills will be realized by the Member States in time. This scenario was criticized as being totally unrealistic by several participants, and therefore the whole study was called into question.
Meanwhile, in order to facilitate the discussion with Member States and stakeholders the draft version of the entire Impact Assessment was made available for consultation until the end of October 2009 on the Commission’s CIRCA website (see: http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/env/biowaste_prop/library). The statements given for the Green Paper are published there, too. Using the baseline scenarios the methodology of the study made comparisons for each Member State by modelling different approaches for biowaste management from food waste prevention and home composting, different collection and treatment options (composting, AD, incineration) and considered switching between the options. Three policy scenarios for the 27 Member States were compared economically with setting purely compost standards as the first, high prevention and recycling as the second and low recycling as the third for the period 2013–2020. The second scenario results in the greatest net benefit to society calculated by adding together the environmental damages and financial costs.
Conclusions
The overall impression of the conference was that a distinct majority of the participating organisations, stakeholders and 23 Member States argued in favour of a biowaste directive with clearly set targets. The conference resulted in expectations that there would be a running evaluation process for a biowaste legislation and the responsible officers at the Commission would take up the arguments expressed and legally push for separate collection and promote material recycling of biowastes. An upstream energetic utilization e.g. biogas plants, could be advantageous. Processing organic matter should nevertheless be considered equal or even be the preferred option e.g.composting of biowaste and post-composting of the digestates.
 Josef Barth, managing director of the European Compost Network |
Josef Barth, managing director of the European Compost Network ECN/ORBIT e.V.
e-mail: info@compostnetwork.info
The presentations of the conference can be found website on the website www.biowaste.eu.
