EUROPEAN UNION
DEVE-035
Committee of the Regions
Brussels, 8 February 2005
WORKING DOCUMENT
of the Commission for Sustainable Development
on
The implementation of the Directive on the landfill of waste (1999/31/EC) at regional and local level
_____________
Rapporteur: Mr Wim van Gelder
Queen's Commissioner, Province of Zeeland (NL/EPP)
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This document will be discussed at the meeting of the Commission for Sustainable Development to be
held on Tuesday, 1 March at 11 a.m.
DOCUMENT SUBMITTED FOR TRANSLATION: 2 February 2005
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EN
-1Introduction
Local and regional authorities are responsible for implementing a large part of EU policies regarding
the environment. As waste management is one of their key competencies, the Directive on the landfill
of waste (1999/31 EC) is of big importance to them. Many Member States, and accordingly a large
number of local and regional authorities, are experiencing big difficulties in complying with this
directive while others adapt to its requirements without major problems.
To get to know more about the state of implementation of the directive, implementation problems and
financials repercussions linked with it, the European Commission has, in a letter dated 10 December
2004, passed a referral to the CoR regarding “The implementation of the Landfill Directive (1999/31
EC) at regional and local level”.
The Commission asks for a report giving “an overview of the development of the situation regarding
landfills in the Member States (25) and to highlight implementation problems with the directive”.
The Report should
“ a) assess current implementation of the Landfill Directive and detail its cost benefit;
b) Provide ideas on how to improve effectiveness of the implementation of the directive whilst;

Assessing the relative importance of landfill as a waste treatment;

Discussing practical problems with the Landfill Directive including difficulties due to the
involvement of different administrative levels, experiences with closures, refurbishing, sampling
and analysis of waste etc;

Analysing estimated (financial) benefits by reducing waste sent to landfill;

Discussing the use of landfill taxes.”
The Commission asks the CoR to deliver the report by the end of 2005.
At its 16 November 2004 meeting, the CoR Bureau decided to commission a study on the subject,
which could serve as a reference document for the Committee opinion. The study should involve a
representative number of regional and local authorities entrusted with the implementation of the
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-2Directive on the landfill of waste. To this end, the research institute in charge of the study will draw
up a questionnaire to be completed by relevant regional and local authorities in all Member States.
It is foreseen to choose a research institute in March 2005, which will undertake a survey on the
subject. This survey aims to get feedback from regional and local authorities in all Member States.
The sending out of a questionnaire is foreseen for May 2005. The outcome of this survey will feed
into the drawing up of the report.
This working document has been prepared in order to give a first brief outline of the directive itself,
its importance for the regions and the possible content of the report. Moreover, it describes the
envisaged methodology and gives the timetable for the drawing up of the report.
1.
The Landfill Directive
The Landfill Directive entered into force on 16 July 1999, the deadline for implementation of the
legislation in the Member States was 16 July 2001. Numerous obligations had to be fulfilled by this
date, but the directive also sets further obligations and targets for the years 2006, 2009, 2016. The
intention of the directive is to prevent or to reduce the adverse effect of the landfilling of waste on the
environment, in particular on surface water, groundwater, soil, air and human health. It shall also
reduce greenhouses gases in order to combat climate change.
As landfilling is the worst option in the so-called waste hierarchy (from good to worst: prevention,
reuse, recycling, incineration, landfilling), the long term goal of the directive is to divert waste
streams from being landfilled to more sustainable waste treatment schemes.
The directive mainly:
 lays down requirements for the authorisation, design, operation, closure and after-care of landfills,
 stipulates the necessity to treat waste before landfilling,
 prohibits the co-disposal of hazardous, non-hazardous and inert waste,
 bans certain wastes from landfills,
 requires a considerable reduction of the amount of biodegradable municipal waste going to
landfills.
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-3Many of these requirements entail additional financial burdens for the management of waste, but the
required change in dealing with waste flows can also generate financial benefits.
2.
Importance for local and regional authorities
In the majority, if not in all Member States, waste management is a key responsibility for the regional
and local level.
Regional and local authorities control landfills, issue permits, pursue infringements, remove
municipal waste and clear illegally dumped waste. Often, they are incurring considerable costs to
repair environmental damages caused by landfills which contain for example toxic waste.
In many cases, they also run landfills, incinerators, composting sites and recycling schemes.
As one of its main goals is to discourage the use of landfills, the Landfill Directive has a strong
impact on all other waste treatment methods.
The importance of landfilling as a waste treatment varies considerably between MS.
In some of them, landfilling has almost disappeared, in others it is by far the most important way to
dispose of waste.
3.
Possible content of the report
The overall objective of the report is to give the Committee of the Regions’ political evaluation of the
directive and its implementation process from the point of view of regional and local authorities.
To this end, the report will focus on:
–
implementation problems,
–
best practices,
–
the cost/benefit side of the implementation.
The following information should give some first ideas on what the report will deal with:
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-4a)
Problems with the implementation of the directive
The problems (as well as the opportunities) linked with the implementation derive from the two main
challenges of the directive:
–
how to make sure that waste going to landfills is safe,
–
how to make sure that less waste is going to landfills.
Until now, landfilling has often been a very cheap way to dispose of waste. The requirements set by
the Landfill directive makes landfilling in general less attractive, because it becomes much more
expensive (e.g. obligations to pre-treat and separate waste, eliminate dangerous substances, provide
financial securities for the aftercare of the site).
After a first assessment, the main problems linked with the implementation seem to be:
- Lack of human resources
Stricter obligations regarding monitoring, controlling and permitting require more staff in the
administration of regional and local authorities while they might not have the means to finance new
posts.
- Lack of means to adapt the landfills to higher standards
If the authorities are running landfill sites themselves, they often do not have the financial means to
adapt them to higher standards. This includes the question if the requirements set in the directive or in
the national transposition laws are strictly necessary to reach the objectives of the directive or if there
are more efficient, less costly ways to do it.
- Lack of information
Regional and local authorities did not always receive at an early stage the information needed for the
implementation on account of not having been involved in the implementation process.
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-5- Lack of alternative waste treatment schemes
As landfills capacities will decrease on account of the closing down of sites, the waste has to be
disposed of in another way, although alternative treatment facilities are often underdeveloped. This
can lead to the necessity to export waste - which is often unsustainable and costly because of the
transport. Regional and local authorities often have to build up recycling schemes, composting
facilities and increase incineration capacities. This takes time and often requires major investments.
Many authorities lack the financial means for these investments.
- Lack of economic actors
A lack of economic actors interested in collecting waste seems to be a main factor which hinders the
diversion of the waste stream going to landfills.
- Lack of public awareness
Public awareness is a key problem as well – environmental consciousness is not equally developed in
the EU. Lack of public awareness often shows in little interest in participating in recycling schemes, a
higher degree of fly-tipping etc..
b)
Best practices
Numerous regions and municipalities do comply quite easily with the directive.
This is often due to the fact that they and their national governments started tackling waste problems
many years ago. In many Member States, the requirements set in the Landfill Directive largely
correspond to requirements already set in national legislation before the directive had to be applied.
Other authorities are making progress, although they had to face big challenges when the directive
was adopted.
After a first assessment, the main reasons for a successful implementation seem to be:
–
good information to and consultation of the general public in order to raise citizens´ awareness,
–
financial incentives to use alternate waste treatment schemes, especially landfill taxes,
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-6–
consequent monitoring of the requirements of the directive,
–
quick building up of recycling schemes and enlargement of incineration capacities,
–
encouragement of the waste treatment industry to collect “valuable waste”.
c)
Costs and benefits linked with the directive
The directive is likely to have financial implications in various fields as
–
the budget of the authority in charge (e.g. expenses for staff in charge of control and monitoring
measures, permitting; expenses for the aftercare of landfills, clearing of fly-tipped waste; savings
due to the reduction of waste going to landfills, income from landfill taxes),
–
landfill operators (e.g. investments, staff, aftercare, revenues from customers),
–
landfill customers (higher landfill fees),
–
the waste industry (e.g. creation/loss of jobs in the waste/recycling industry, income/costs from/for
recovering, recycling or incinerating waste),
–
households (development of refuse fees due to the implementation of the directive).
It will not be able to examine all of these factors in depth in the framework of the report. Therefore,
the report will mainly focus on the impact on regional and local authorities, also in their quality as
landfill operators.
The report will also try to find out if considerable impacts on the quality of air, water, soil or human
health have already been detected.
4.
Time schedule:
The time-schedule is very tight, as the Commission has asked the CoR to deliver the report by the end
of 2005.
Therefore, the steps foreseen for the adoption of the report are as follows:
1 March:
Orientation debate with working document
28 June:
Presentation of a 2nd working document
6 October:
Adoption of the draft report
16-17 November:
Adoption in plenary
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-7-
It is foreseen to hold a conference, in cooperation with the European Commission, based on this
report in late 2005. Regional and local authorities shall present their experiences, especially cases of
best practices. The participation of representatives from the waste industry, NGOs and the other
institutions of the EU is foreseen as well.
5.
Invitation to participate
This report will be the CoR’s first report on the implementation of EU environmental policy at
regional and local level. It is a great opportunity to showcase the importance of regions and
municipalities for the success of environmental policy and to highlight the role of the Committee as
representative of these authorities. It shall promote an exchange of best practices and help regional
and local authorities to deal with the problems they are facing with this directive. Therefore, it is
essential that a large amount of regions and municipalities contribute to the drawing up of the report
by responding to the questionnaire and by providing other information which should be valuable for
the report. It would be especially appreciated to get information on best practices very soon, so that
they can be looked at at an early stage.
The rapporteur therefore would like to invite all members of DEVE Commission to actively
participate in the making of this report.
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