Waste in the United Kingdom (Part 2) by Nick Upton, 2006
 
 
Table 1:
EU Directives and their aims.
 
 
Directive Aims
Waste Framework Directive
  • To create the obligation for member states to produce a waste management plan.
  • To restrict the production of waste and to promote recycling and reuse.
  • To reduce the movements of waste.
  • To establish a waste hierarchy to prioritise the treatment of waste.

(Hull City Council & East Riding of Yorkshire Council, 2004; arc21, 2003)

Landfill Directive
  • To reduce the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill; an estimated 30 – 70% of municipal waste is biodegradable (McKibben, 2003; arc21, 2003).
  • To ban the landfill of a number of potentially toxic hazardous wastes such as tyres and clinical waste and also to ban the disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous wastes together.
  • To ensure the pre-treatment of wastes before landfilling.

(Hull City Council & East Riding of Yorkshire Council, 2004; arc21, 2003); EU, 1999)

Packaging and Packaging waste
Directive
  • To prevent the production of packaging waste.
  • To promote the reuse, recycling and recovery of packaging waste.

(Hull City Council & East Riding of Yorkshire Council, 2004; arc21, 2003)

Municiple Waste Incineration Directives
  • To set emission standards for incinerators to comply with.

(Hull City Council & East Riding of Yorkshire Council, 2004)

Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive
  • To ban the dumping of sewage sludge at sea and to raise sewage treatment standards.

(Hull City Council & East Riding of Yorkshire Council, 2004)

End of Life Vehicles Directive
  • To encourage the reuse and recycling of vehicle components and materials, aiming for 85% recycling by weight in the year 2015.
  • To regulate by licensing the trade in vehicle scrap.

(arc21, 2003)

 
 

 

In addition there are a number of very specific directives, such as that concerning the disposal of batteries, that are planned for the future (Defra, 2006a), which together with the six directives above, read as a sort of ten commandments of waste disposal. Just as even the least pious would find it hard to disagree with the basic principles of most religions, few would find fault with the aims of these directives; and similarly to religious tenets it is only in their interpretation and application that any contentiousness arises, something which is left to the governments of each of the member states to contrive.

In the UK, the national government has published a set of policies and legislation that provide guidance in how waste management should be tackled, such as the Waste Strategy for England and Wales (Defra, 2000). This document re-affirms the aims outlined in the original EU directives; indeed it is so similar to these directives that some may ask, “why bother with it?” giving fuel to those in support of a federal European government. However, one of the main achievements of this strategy is to condense all of the directives’ aims into three guiding principles for the management of waste in the UK:

Next : a. The waste hierachy
b. The best practicable environmental option
c. The proximity principle