The EU Council has approved a set of measures to orient EU legislation in the field of waste management to the tasks of accelerated reduction and processing, a decision made within the framework of the EU course on a closed cycle economy.
“The final approval by the Council of the new EU waste regulations marks an important point for a closed cycle economy in Europe. The new landfill processing and storage objectives provide a credible and ambitious course to improve waste management in Europe, "said Carmen Vella, a member of the European Commission on the Environment. According to Vella, the main task is to ensure that the promised measures are really implemented on the ground. He promised that the European Commission would do everything possible, "so that new legislation will yield results on the ground."
The essence of the new rules based on the proposals of the European Commission from December 2015 is to help prevent waste production, and when this is not possible, significantly increase the level of processing of municipal waste and packaging waste. This approach is aimed at the gradual disposal of waste from landfills and the use of economic instruments such as "extended producer liability regimes".
The new legislation requires Member States to take special measures to encourage the prevention, reuse and recycling of waste instead of being landfilled or incinerated.
The European Commission evaluates the approved new measures as "the most modern waste legislation in the world".
The goal is to bring municipal waste processing to 55% by 2025, to 60% by 2030 and to 65% by 2035. The control figures and terms for the processing of packaging from various materials - plastic, wood, metals, glass, cardboard, etc. - have also been established. In general, it is planned to achieve 65% of the packaging processing by 2025 and 70% by 2030.
In order to develop the experience of separate collection of plastic, glass, paper and metal wastes in Europe, the task is to ensure separate collection of hazardous household waste not later than 2022, biowaste by 2023 and textile waste by 2025.
