Last week, the EU Council of Ministers adopted a regulation establishing criteria to determine when scrap iron, steel and aluminium cease to be considered waste.
The regulation sets out conditions to be fulfilled for each scrap material before it can be freely traded within the EU's internal market.
Iron, steel and aluminium scrap should "be sufficiently pure and meet the relevant scrap standards or specifications required by the metal producing industry," the European Commission stressed.
"We must start treating waste as a valuable resource," said Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik, adding that end-of-waste criteria for material streams would "boost our recycling industry and services".
Currently, trade in recycled materials is hampered by different national legislation. The new regulation is expected to create legal certainty and a level playing field for the recycling industry, and remove administrative burdens for the recycling sector "by releasing safe and clean secondary raw materials from the scope of waste legislation".
It will also contribute to supplies of raw materials for European industry, the EU executive said.
Coming into force shortly
The draft regulation was initially submitted by the Commission in October last year. It will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal and will be directly applicable in all 27 EU countries after a transition period of six months.
The Commission said it is currently preparing criteria for other material streams which it considers of particular importance for EU recycling markets, such as copper, paper, glass and compost.
