13-02-2007

The plenary voted on Tuesday 13 February on a report tabled by the Parliament's environment committee, which calls for waste production to be stabilised by 2012 at 2008 levels. The European Parliament overwhelmingly supported the report, with 662 votes in favour, and 17 votes against.

There are huge differences in recycling rates across EU Member States. Some countries send 90 per cent of their waste to landfill with only 10 per cent being recycled. At the greener end of the spectrum some send 10 per cent to landfill, 25 per cent to energy recovery and 65 per cent is recycled.

"The volume of waste is increasing", said British conservative MEP Caroline Jackson, who is in charge of the dossier, underlining that "we need to shift our policy towards reuse and recycling".

Mrs Jackson's paper suggests to reduce pressure on landfill sites. It advocates a five-step approach to waste treatment from the most to the least environmentally-sound. On a green scale, prevention of waste is best followed by its reuse, recycling, and energy recovery while landfills are a last resort.

The report proposes the following measures:

The Parliament is likely to clash with the European Commission over the reports. According to a commission spokesperson "each Member State faces a different situation", underlining it would be "difficult to set up one common cap on waste production".  In addition, Brussels "does not want the existing five-stage waste hierarchy to be carved in stone". Instead, it favours a so-called concept of life-cycle thinking, which gives some room for manoeuvre when choosing an option of waste management.

The European Council is expected to make a decision in June 2007.