Shipments of waste, Basel Convention 1989 and OECD Decision 1992

The European Parliament adopted a resolution drafted by Johannes BLOKLAND (EDD, Netherlands) and made several amendments to the Commission's proposals. (Please see the summary of 04/11/03.) Parliament made the following points: 

• within 18 months from the entry into force of the Regulation, the Commission will establish guidelines to determine when a ship or a vehicle becomes a waste pursuant to Directive 75/442/EEC; 
• Parliament inserted a new definition of notifier; 
• the authorities of dispatch and destination may oblige the consignee to draw up reports on a regular basis, setting out all the waste treatment operations. These reports will contain details of all incoming and outgoing waste for each treatment method, so as to enable the authorities to check at any time that shipments are being carried out as per the notification; 
• the facility that receives the waste must keep incoming and outgoing volume records for each specific treatment line and for each sub-section of each treatment line;
• the competent authority of dispatch may also invoke its national environmental protection laws to oppose planned shipments; 
• in exceptional cases, and if the specific geographical situation warrants such a step, Member States may conclude bilateral agreements relaxing the notification procedure for shipments of specific flows of waste in respect of cross-border shipments to the nearest suitable facility located in the border area between the two Member States concerned of notifiable waste generated in that border area.
• Finally, the competent authority of the exporting or importing Member State must make publicly available by appropriate means, such as the Internet, all notifications of shipments it has consented to, and all related documents, at the latest 7 days after consent was given.