Strasbourg, 16/03/2000 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption of the report by Dutch national Johannes Blokland (EDD), the European Parliament amended, in the context of codecision procedure, the Council's "common position" concerning the directive on waste incineration. It calls for exclusion to be made from the directive of the incineration installations which handle only agricultural and forestry vegetable waste, the vegetable waste from the food processing sector and fibrous waste from paper production, as well as wood waste (except that which may contain halogenated organic compounds or heavy metals from treatment). Other exceptions (cork, radioactive waste or waste from the exploration for and the exploitation of oil and gas resources from off-shore installations) were already in the Council position. As far as the co-incineration of waste from large combustion plants, the Parliament calls for a reduction of nitrogen oxide emissions to 500 mg/m3 in the new installations and 800 mg/m3 in the older installations (the Council position had retained a single norm of 800 mg/m3). The Parliament also sets at 1 January 2007 instead of 2008 the buffer date for the duration of exemptions from which the existing cement ovens could benefit, using the wet procedure or that which burns less than three tonnes of waste per hour. The Parliament did not, on one point, follow the raporteur who hoped to reduce to 15 mg/m3, instead of 30 mg/m3, the volume of total dust emitted by these ovens.
At the close of the vote, Mr Blokland declared that the Socialist and Liberal Groups had changed their attitude since the first reading where they had accepted most of the amendments against which they voted in second reading.
He regretted that Parliament did not succeed in gathering a large enough majority to approximate standards for incineration and co-incineration and to introduce a monitoring system for dangerous gas emissions. The differences between the standards and the lax attitude of certain Member States in terms of monitoring is damaging to the working of the Internal market and will mean that waste will continue to be transported from Member States with stricter legislation to the others.
During debate, the representatives of the various groups were very critical of the report. British Labour MEP David Bowe spoke of a "bad report at the wrong time, which goes beyond everything Parliament has advocated until now." He stated that recently adopted rules for industry could not be changed without placing companies in an untenable situation. Françoise Grossetête (EPP/DL, France) defended the same position, saying the rapporteur's proposals were unrealistic and would lead to costly investments for industry. Several Liberal MEPs and Irish Green Patricia McKenna insisted on the fact that incineration must be considered a last resort and consequently risks discouraging the production of waste.
Margot Wallström said on behalf of the Commission that she would be prepared to accept several amendments including the one establishing an exception, notably for the paper industry. On the other hand, she said she could not accept the stricter norms for nitrogen oxide.