Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-04-05-Speech-2-511-000"
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"en.20110405.21.2-511-000"2
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"The new Waste Framework Directive has set up a five-step hierarchy for waste management. Waste prevention is regarded as the most desirable option, followed by preparing waste for re-use, recycling and other ways of recovery, including energy recovery, with disposal such as landfill as the last resort. Deviations from the hierarchy for specific waste streams are possible.
Finally, tomorrow I am flying to Greece, where I will be on a two-day full visit and we will, of course, discuss all these questions in detail there.
However, Member States departing from the hierarchy would need to provide a sound justification. Therefore, waste disposal in landfills that lie at the bottom of the waste hierarchy must be considered by the Member States as the least favourable waste management option.
High purity of waste materials, such as paper and glass, is a prerequisite for the use of waste as a secondary raw material by manufacturing industries. That is why separate collection of recyclable waste streams at source is usually the most favourable method of waste collection. Under the Waste Framework Directive, Member States are obliged to introduce by 2015 separate collections for paper, metal, plastic and glass. Again there is certain flexibility for Member States to adapt their waste collection systems to the specific national circumstances, notably in cases where highly efficient and advanced sorting technologies are available. In the absence of such technologies, however, separate collection at source is the cheapest and the easiest method to obtain high quality secondary raw materials from waste.
Greece faces serious problems with illegal landfill disposal and was condemned, as you know, by the Court in 2005 due to the huge number of illegal landfills that had been operating in its territory. This issue has not been resolved yet. Nevertheless, in December 2010, the Greek authorities provided an action plan according to which all the legal landfills will be closed by the end of June this year. The Commission welcomes this plan, including the construction of new landfill sites, under the condition that this is unavoidable as a last resort option to maintain the waste disposal network that meets mandatory sanitary standards in line with European legal requirements.
The construction of landfills complying with the standards of the EU Landfill Directive is already progress compared to the practice of illegal dumping of waste. The Commission urges the Greek authorities to complete their planning and the construction of the landfill sites – programmes that benefit already from EU funds. However, Greece must steadily go beyond these measures and move away from landfill as a predominant waste management option towards a modern waste management policy based on waste recovery and recycling.
According to the latest Eurostat statistics, in Greece around 82% of municipal waste is land-filled whereas the average in the European Union is 38%. Additionally, the performance of the recycling sector in Greece is very low and only 17% of municipal waste is recycled.
The implementation of the waste directive is a top priority both for the Commission and for me personally. We will monitor the national waste policies through the assessment of the Member States’ waste management plans. We are waiting for an updated waste management plan from Greece. In addition, we are carefully monitoring the implementation of the Greek action plan and the process of closing all the illegal landfills, including the plan for the EU-funded projects.
We will also monitor the use of EU funding to ensure that the projects to be financed are consistent with the objectives and requirements defined in our waste legislation. In the case of Greece, it is essential to reduce landfill and to increase recycling rates through separate collection and recyclable materials.
Proper waste management should be seen as an opportunity as it can create business and jobs across the country. It is also essential to achieve the new resource sufficiency objectives through the application of best practices."@en1
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