The Proposed Directive on Waste - An assessment of the Impact Assessment and the Implications of the Integration of the Hazardous Waste Directive into the existing Waste Framework Directive

The current waste framework Directive1 (WFD) was originally adopted in 1975 and has been amended many times. In December 2005, the European Commission adopted the Thematic Strategy on waste prevention and recycling2, which was accompanied by a proposal to amend the waste framework Directive (herein referred to as the DoW), which is fundamental to the implementation of many ideas put forward in the Strategy3. Annexed to both the Strategy and legislative proposal was an Impact Assessment4 of both the Thematic Strategy and its immediate implementing measures (IA). The proposed DoW would update the text of the WFD considerably, adding important new provisions and integrating requirements previously dealt with by the hazardous waste Directive5 (HWD) and the waste oils Directive6 (WOD). The proposed DoW would replace both of these Directives, as well as the WFD. The aim of this report was to undertake an assessment for the European Parliament of the following two aspects of the proposed DoW: • The IA of the proposed DoW; and • Selected potential changes to hazardous waste law resulting from the integration of the HWD into the proposed DoW. These are addressed, respectively, in Part I and Part II of this report.