"REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE"...

Friends of the Earth Europe is committed to reversing Europe's "throw-away" culture. We are campaigning to save the Earth's precious natural resources. We firmly believe in reducing the amount of waste produced in the first place, reusing products wherever possible and then recycling materials rather than dumping them in landfill or burning them in incinerators. Photo: Hnuti DUHA

FoEE and EEB campaigned at the European Parliament, Strasbourg prior to a vote on the Waste Framework Directive. Photo credit: Samten Norbù.

THE WASTE FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE

The European Union’s 2008 Waste Framework Directive (WFD) forms the basis of member states’ waste policy. During the lengthy negotiations leading up to the passing of the legislation, FoEE successfully campaigned for huge improvements to the initial proposals. These include:

• The EU’s first general recycling targets for both household waste – 50% by 2020, and construction and demolition waste – 70% by 2020
• The establishment of waste prevention objectives with the planned introduction of targets in 2014
• The establishment of a 5-tier waste hierarchy in EU Law:
  • Prevention
    • Reuse
      • Recycling
        • Recovery
          • Disposal

Whilst these are very positive steps, we believe the Directive still has some crucial limitations:

• Recycling targets are not as strong nor as ambitious as we believe is possible and necessary
• Under the Directive some incinerators are reclassified as ‘recovery’ of waste, rather than ‘disposal’; encouraging greater incineration by pushing it higher up the waste hierarchy
• The re-classification of certain materials as by-products rather than waste has removed them from safety regulations

Recycling not Incineration

Every year the EU landfills and burns over €5 billion worth of recyclable materials. Burying and burning our planet’s precious resources is not economically viable or environmentally sustainable. If these materials were recycled it would save an estimated 148 million tonnes of CO2eq, equivalent to taking approximately 47 million cars off the road per year. See our Gone to Waste report for details.

At the same time, Europe is more dependent on imported resources than any other world region – see our Overconsumption report for more details.

What’s more, in many European countries incineration rates are rising, with energy from waste technologies billed as an efficient and environmentally-friendly option for the treatment of waste.

FoEE rejects these claims and campaigns against Europe’s increasing dependence on incineration technologies.

Why?

• Resource Efficiency
  Incineration wastes valuable resources such as metals, plastics, wood or biodegradable resources that could otherwise be salvaged through recycling. Every ton of incinerated materials has to be extracted and processed again, increasing environmental damage and dependency of the EU economy on expensive imports. More energy is saved through recycling than is extracted by burning most waste. 

• Climate Change
  Incineration produces greenhouse gas emissions - a typical incinerator converting waste to electricity produces around 33% more fossil-fuel derived carbon dioxide than a gas fired power station. In contrast, recycling saves greenhouse emissions by avoiding the need to extract and process primary resources. A recent UK government-funded study concludes that "UK recycling currently saves between 10-15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases per year compared to other waste management options.”

• High recycling rates are possible
  Belgium and Austria are already recycling more than 50% of their municipal waste, with the Flanders region of Belgium recycling around 75%. In contrast, some member states still recycle less than 10% and a number of countries have recycling rates stuck between 40 and 50%. This shows the need to set high EU-wide recycling targets, so that the poor performers catch up.

• Jobs
  Recycling creates jobs. Recycling 10 000 tonnes of waste creates up to 250 jobs compared with 20 to 40 jobs if the waste is incinerated and about 10 for landfill.

• Incineration discourages prevention, reuse and recycling
  Incinerators are inflexible in terms of the quantities needed to operate them, which means they require a steady stream of waste is needed for many years in order to be profitable. This discourages the prevention of waste and investment in other waste treatment alternatives.

• Waste transport
  Reclassification of incinerators as 'recovery' could promote export of waste from countries with strict, costly facilities like Germany to those with cheaper ones, like France, Poland and the Czech Republic. This unacceptable transport of waste will also result in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

• Sound use of EU funds?
  In central and eastern Europe, the reclassification of incinerators could have particularly adverse effects. Given the huge cost of building incinerators ,it could divert the use of millions of Euros from the EU structural and cohesion funds from sorting and recycling schemes into building new incinerators.

More information on why we oppose incineration and the alternatives we support can be found in our briefings:

Up in Smoke - why Friends of the Earth opposes incineration >>>

• Gone to waste - new report on the valuable resources that European countries bury and burn

The way forward

For more information on best practice, including how Flanders achieves its high recycling rates, see the write up of our Taking out the Rubbish conference on maximising recycling and phasing out residual waste - a write up of the talks and Q&A sessions from a conference held in April 2009, and powerpoint presentations can be found here. 

• Develop prevention
  - The European Commission is examining the potential for EU waste prevention targets, with the aim of putting in place targets in 2014
  - Measure Europe’s resource use and use this information to create targets and reduce it
  - Prevention is also linked to recycling: recycling makes waste more visible and seems to encourage prevention

• Develop reuse
  - Furniture and white goods make up a large portion of residual waste
  - Reuse schemes often operate with huge social benefits, providing furniture and electrical goods at low cost and creating employment

• Optimise recycling
  - Kerbside separation is often the most environmentally sound method as it reduces contamination of materials
  - Civic amenity ‘bring’ sites are also vital in creating a place where a wide range of materials can be recycled – the best performers do half their recycling this way

• Take advantage of AD
  - Anaerobic Digestion (AD) can generate 100% renewable energy from food waste, slurries, sewage sludge etc.
  - The biogas it produces can be injected into the national grid or even used as a transport fuel

• Compost and separate the residual
  The residual waste left over can then be processed using Material Recycling Facility (MRF) technology to separate out recyclables, including plastics, before and after composting the residual:
  • to remove the bulk of the biological activity (in case the output is landfilled)
  • to release further recyclables
  • to create a low-grade compost output.
    
    This process, known as mechanical biological treatment (MBT), is modular and flexible, so can be scaled up and down according to requirements. The process can occur in small, localised treatments plants to minimise waste transport. Research shows this is better for the climate than incineration (including with heat recovery). The residue should not be burnt as a fuel.

What next?

The deadline for the transposition of the WFD into national laws is 12 December 2010. This process offers national campaign groups the opportunity to push further for more demanding targets and more sustainable solutions:

• Information on these opportunities and potential actions can be found  EEB’s briefing ‘Campaign Guide to the Waste Framework Directive transposition – opportunities and actions for NGOs'

In 2014 the European Commission will be reviewing EU recycling targets. This should offer the opportunity to establish significantly higher targets:

• We believe 70% recycling targets are achievable and necessary
• Stronger packaging targets are also important in preventing the creation of waste and assisting in the achievement of higher recycling targets.

EU money should be spent to help best practice approaches:

• Stop funding incineration and focus on flexible and climate-friendly residual waste treatments
• Create high quality recycling and reuse systems

“Fouad Hamdan, on the Green Week panel debating the European waste crisis – Brussels, 31 May 2006”

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