This report is published pursuant to Directive 1999/31/EC on the landfill of waste on the national strategies drawn up by Member States to reduce the amounts of biodegradable waste going to landfills.
To recall, the objective of Directive 1999/31/EC on the landfill of wasteis to prevent or reduce as far
as possible negative effects on the environment, in particular the pollution of surface water, groundwater, soil and air, and on the global environment, including the greenhouse effect, as well as any resulting risk to human health, from landfilling of waste, during the whole lifecycle of the landfill.
Pursuant to Article 5(1) of the Directive Member States must set up a national strategy for the implementation of the reduction of biodegradable waste going to landfills not later than 16 July 2003 and notify the Commission of this strategy. The strategies should include measures to achieve the targets set out in Article 5(2) by means of in particular recycling, composting, biogas production or materials/energy recovery.
Article 5(2) requires the reduction of biodegradable municipal waste going to landfills to
– 75% by 16 July 2006
– 50% by 16 July 2009 and
– 35% by 16 July 2016
calculated on the basis of the total amount of biodegradable municipal produced in 1995 or the latest year before 1995 for which standardised Eurostat data is available.
Member States that landfilled more than 80 % of their municipal waste in 1995 may postpone each of the targets by a maximum of four years.
By January 2004 the Commission had received the national strategies from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden as well as regional plans for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region. Ireland and Spain have not submitted their strategies. Finland’s strategy was submitted too late to be included in this report. In addition, the ten new Member States had to submit their national strategies after accession. The Commission will continue to liaise with these Member States in order to obtain information covering the whole Community.
The report draws together the strategies submitted. As no format was provided for the strategies, the structure and detail of the strategies submitted vary significantly. The report consists of a description of the current status in Member States and their national strategies as well as general conclusions. It is accompanied by a Commission staff working paper which contains a more detailed summary of the strategies and the data received from Member States.
Only twelve Member States have submitted their national strategies. Two of the twelve Member States have submitted these strategies on a regional basis. For the United Kingdom all the regional strategies were submitted. For Belgium no strategy was submitted for the region of Brussels.
The promotion of composting, recycling of paper and energy recovery are elements of all strategies. Most strategies stress the importance of using source segregated organic waste to obtain good quality compost. The level of detail of the strategies and the measures to achieve the targets vary considerably. Some Member States have chosen legally binding measures, while others have chosen voluntary measures and incentives. Greece and the United Kingdom will postpone the reduction targets by four years.