Watered-down waste directive gets MEPs' green light

Parliament's rapporteur on waste, UK centre-right MEP Caroline Jackson, described the compromise deal as a good one. "MEPs have now added recycling targets and put a new emphasis on waste prevention," she said, adding: "Anyone who still criticises the package we have agreed has to realise that the alternative may not be a better package, but no package at all. This is as good as we are going to get – and it's very good."

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas welcomed the revised directive and said it signalled "a modernised approach to waste management, with clearer definitions, greater emphasis on prevention of waste and ambitious new recycling goals". According to him, "the clear definitions and waste management principles it sets out will resolve existing interpretation problems, reduce the number of Court cases and create a sound legal basis for the functioning of the waste treatment sector". 

But Green UK MEP Jill Evans bemoaned the lack of political will evident in the revised directive: "Instead of EU waste stabilisation and reduction targets we only get Commission studies on waste prevention, even though waste prevention is the stated top priority of EU waste policy! Instead of clear and ambitious targets for waste reuse and recycling, we get non-binding targets for 2020 that many member states have already achieved." 

European United Left MEP Bairbre de Brun (IRL) thought the new directive to be "progressive in certain areas" but "still leaves a lot to be desired". She criticised waste recycling targets for being "too low and too difficult to enforce, due to vagueness of wording". 

The Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), the Committee of the Regions  and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) released a joint press release in which CEMR Secretary General Jeremy Smith welcomed the revised waste directive as a "well-balanced compromise between political vision and pragmatic solutions," which "will help Europe move towards becoming a recycling society".

BusinessEurope welcomed the new waste directive, saying it gives more legal clarity to what defines waste. But it believes that it obstructs movement towards a single market for waste and sees it as a "missed opportunity" to create a genuine recycling society. 

Commenting on the directive, UAEPME, which represents SMEs in Brussels, said it is "unimpressed" with the legally binding targets set out in the directive as they would "be particularly burdensome for small enterprises". 

The European Environment Bureau (EEB) and Friends of the Earth Europe find the compromise "deeply disappointing". They believe the waste recycling targets are "too low to address the urgency of resource and climate threats" and "exclude too many significant waste streams and will be difficult to enforce."

Dr Vyvyan Howard, the president of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE), also criticised the directive's provisions relating to incinerators, saying: "We can't stand by as doctors and watch as the EU encourages the incineration of waste while disregarding the possible health consequences."