EU: Final end-of-waste criteria report emerges

The European commission's joint research centre (JRC) has published its final recommendations on how to define when certain waste streams that have undergone recovery cease to be waste under EU law.

Under the recently revised EU waste framework directive, the European commission must assess the need for so-called end-of-waste criteria for several waste streams.

The JRC proposes a general methodology and principles for defining end-of-waste criteria at EU level. It says the criteria should cover the input waste material, the recovery processes used, the quality of the resulting product and its potential applications.

The report recommends quality control procedures to ensure criteria are met and suggests impact assessment guidelines for deciding whether such criteria should be set in the first place. The report includes case studies on setting end-of-waste criteria for compost, scrap metal and recyclable aggregates.

The commission is expected to publish its proposals for possible end-of-waste criteria by the end of this year.