By Matt Williams - 8th April 2008
Members of parliament’s environment committee have backed a report calling for mandatory recycling targets for all EU member states.
The outcome of the vote on Tuesday was a success for the rapporteur, UK Conservative deputy Caroline Jackson, who has been fighting to ensure that recycling targets are included in the commission's final directive.
"These targets are very important to MEPs. Recycling represents a sustainable way of dealing with waste and many countries need to put more effort into developing recycling schemes," she said.
"EU targets will be a considerable incentive to countries whose recycling schemes are slow to develop."
Under the targets, member states will have to reach recycling rates of 50 per cent for domestic waste and 70 per cent for construction and demolition waste by 2020.
In a concession to member states, the report also states that incineration of waste should be categorised as "recovery" rather than "disposal", provided that the incineration process meets a certain energy efficiency standard.
MEPs had originally rejected both an energy efficiency formula and the idea of labelling the incineration process as recovery.
But Jackson is pleased that a compromise could be reached.
"I was delighted that my colleagues voted to accept the idea that energy from waste plants can qualify as recovery rather than disposal operations when they meet the energy efficiency criteria that the new directive sets out," she said.
However, the European association of craft, small and medium-sized enterprises (UEAPME) says recycling targets should have been subject to an impact assessment before being proposed.
"The arbitrary targets on recycling approved by the environment committee are neither based on existing statistics nor supported by an impact assessment study,” said Guido Lena, UEAPME director for environmental policy.
"MEPs regrettably decided to disregard these basic requirements and went ahead in a target-setting frenzy that is bound to do more harm than good."
But green groups have welcomed the targets. According to Nathalie Cliquot, the European environmental bureau’s waste policy officer, "EU-level targets will give a true sense of direction to all member states, and create drivers for investments in resource-efficient systems."
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