The European Parliament is meeting today in plenary session to vote on a report from the Environment Committee which calls for stabilization of municipal waste production at 2008 levels by 2012.
As the amount of household and industrial waste is increasing across Europe, MEPs in the European Parliament will debate two reports and vote today. The reports include one from Caroline Jackson, Conservative MEP for the South West of England. The reports call for more recycling, prevention of waste production and a reduction in the use of landfills for disposal.
In the EU currently, 49% of municipal waste is sent to landfill sites while 33% recycled or composted.
In total waste terms, 3.5 tonnes of waste is produced per person per year within the EU.
Both reports are due to be voted on today (Tuesday).
Caroline Jackson is the author of the first report being considered by the Parliament. This relates to the current advances towards a revised directive on waste and calls for binding targets to stabilise waste production at anticipated 2008 levels by 2012. It also calls for greater re-use and recycling to reduce pressure on landfill sites.
The second report from Johannes Blokland of the Independence and Democracy Group, is seeking a "thematic strategy" to deal with the problem of waste. In this case the report calls for a total ban on all landfilling of waste by 2020.
This second report also asks the European Commission to propose ways of reducing waste and develop measures that would show progress, i.e. would monitor the system.
The waste hierarchy - 5 steps to less waste
One of the measures strongly supported by the Jackson report is the "five step" approach on waste treatment. Effectively this is the “waste hierarchy” ranking prevention, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, with landfill as a last resort.
To date there has been a preference not to put the waste hierarchy “in tablets of stone” as, on occasions, this does not yield the best environmental solution, e.g. where long road journeys are required to, say, recycle materials.
However the report considers that the benefits of recycling are clear as just one example shows. Producing paper from recycled waste paper rather than wood saves a quarter of a tonne of energy consumption. It is also 75% less polluting to the atmosphere. Across the 27-member EU, the average level of paper and cardboard recycling is 49.6%.
Across the Community there is a large range in the quantities of materials being recycled. Some members send 90% of their waste to landfill with only 10% being recycled. At the greener end of the spectrum some send 10% to landfill, 25% to energy recovery and 65% is recycled.