Incineration of waste

This amended proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the incineration of waste, adopted pursuant to Article 250 (2) of the Treaty, takes account of a number of amendments that the European Parliament adopted at its plenary session on 14 April 1999. The main amendment accepted concerns the merger of the proposal for a Directive on the incineration of waste and Directive 94/67/EC on the incineration of hazardous waste. This merger subsequently introduces an emission limit value for nitrogen oxides and tightens some emission limit values for heavy metals for plants incinerating or co-incinerating hazardous waste only. Article 14 of Directive 94/67/EC foresees that any emission value established following a revision of that Directive shall not apply to to existing incineration or co-incineration plants before 31/12/2006. It is therefore necessary to include a transition period for existing incineration or co-incineration only hazardous waste according to this Article. As a consequence of this merger it is also necessary to add the definition of hazardous waste to the text and to determine which Directive shall apply for plants incinerating or co-incinerating hazardous waste after the implementation of the Proposal and before the Directive 94/67/EC is repealed. In addition to the above-mentioned transition period to harmonise the standards of non-hazardous and hazardous waste the following provisions have been modified or introduced, compared to Directive 94/67/EC, for plants only incinerating or co-incinerating hazardous waste : - the calculation of the "total emission limit value" has been facilitated by introducing fixed "total emission limit values" for certain kilns and so called "Cprocess values" and "total emission limit values" for combustion plants (Annex II.2); - a new Annex IV provides for emission limit values for discharges from the cleaning of exhaust gases. The Commission also accepts the amendment underlining that the protection of health must be given priority over economic considerations as well as the amendment which broadens the definition of co-incineration plants by clarifying that it means any stationary or mobile plant whose main purpose is the generation of energy or production of material products and which thermally treats wastes with the exception of treatments dedicated to the recovery of the metal content of the waste and to the cleaning of tools. It is worth noting that the Commission rejected these amendments which aim notably at : - the introduction of waste management elements; - establishing links with air and water quality standards; - changing the emission limit values for incineration or co-incineration plants; - requiring that the heat generated in an incineration process or a co-incineration process be systematically recovered.�