Answer given by Mr Sinkevičius on behalf of the European Commission
24.3.2020
EU waste legislation[1],[2] requires Member States, by 2035, to recycle 65% of their municipal waste and not to landfill more than 10%. Consequently, even after the year 2035, up to 35% of municipal waste, representing a residual, non-recyclable fraction, could in theory be energy recovered in line with the waste hierarchy.
As communicated by the Commission[3], where Member States with non-existent dedicated incineration capacity and high reliance on landfill for new residual waste treatment capacity, such as the case of Romania, decide on installing incineration capacity, they should pay particular attention to the use of state-of-the-art energy-efficient technologies and to the size and location of the plant.
It is also crucial to ensure full compliance with the requirements for incineration and co-incineration facilities set out in EU legislation, in particular the Industrial Emissions Directive 2010/75/EC[4] and the Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/2010 establishing the best available techniques (BAT) conclusions, under Directive 2010/75/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, for waste incineration[5] .
Recently, the Commission has not conducted any study on the environment and health effects from modern incinerators. However, achievable emissions limits from such installations are documented in the updated waste incineration reference document (WI BREF)[6].
- [1] Article 11(2) of Directive 2008/98/EC .
- [2] Article 5(5) of Directive 1999/31/EC .
- [3] Communication from the Commission on the role of waste to energy in the circular economy, https://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/waste-to-energy.pdf , at page 7.
- [4] OJ, L 334, 17.12.2010, p.17.
- [5] OJ, L 312, 03.12.2019, p.55.
- [6] https://eippcb.jrc.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2020-01/JRC118637_WI_Bref_2019_published_0.pdf