Brussels, 20/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - By proposing to ban recycling, in the food chain, of fallen stock and condemned animal material, the European Commission too the initiative of a decisive measure to avoid diseases, which often find their origin in animal feed (such as mad cow's disease) or the contamination of feed by dioxins, and thus to contribute to ensure food safety in the Union. The proposed regulation it is submitting, to this end to the Parliament and Council, establishes three distinct categories of animal material of which only one (category 3) could legally enter into the production of animal feed, namely materials from animals declared fit for human consumption following veterinary inspection. "The new classification table proposed by the Commission will enable to put an end to the present situation, rather distasteful, where everything that comes from the animal, except sick animals, can enter into the food chain such as dead animals, abattoir waste and food waste" announced an expert from the Health Directorate General in the Commission, when presenting the proposal to the press.
Category 1, the highest risk category, includes all the materials, that will have to be considered as waste and completely destroyed by incineration or the dumping after an appropriate heat treatment (20mins at 133 degrees), namely: animal by-products presenting a risk to a transmissible spongiform encelophalopathy (TSE) or the presence of residues of substances used illegally (i.e. growth hormones for example).
Category 2, includes materials, banned in the production of animal feed, but which could be recycled after an appropriate heat treatment for the production of biogas, composting, the manufacturing of oleochemical products, etc. Concerned are: a) animal by-products presenting a risk linked to animal diseases other than TSE, that is to say the products from dead animals in the farm or in the context of disease control measures on the farm) or a risk of residues of veterinary drugs, b) manure, digestive tract contents and slaughterhouse water treatment waste.
Category 3, regroups the animal by-products from healthy animals (that is to say products from animals for human consumption put to death in abattoir after having passed a health inspection, fish captured in the high seas, milk from healthy animals) which could enter into the production of animal feed.
According to a Commission expert, the approach retained finds its justification in the scientific opinion and in the fact that it enables to face the ethical objections, to improve the image of the industry concerned, largely demonised by the mad cow's disease crisis, and to answer for the first time the environmental concerns linked to the elimination of waste whose use in the food chain is banned. The animal feed industry each year produces 16 million tonnes of waste. In this total, 14.3 million tonnes correspond to the products that can be consumed. The waste whose use is banned represent 1.8 million tonnes. Their incineration should answer the requirements of the new Directive on the incineration of waste which should be the object of a conciliation agreement between the Parliament and Council. The classification, is controlled by very strict provision in terms of the control and tractability. The separation between three categories of waste should be made during the collection, transportation, storage and transformation. A viable system for the identification (with the use of a marker for products from categories 1 and 2 aimed at being destroyed or incinerated) and the recording of final products, will complete the provision.
Several Member States have already anticipated implementation of new rules or will do so
The Member States are free to consider that all waste from category 1 or to merge categories 1 and 2, but this classification is useful", noted an expert adding that several Member States already anticipate these new rules, such as France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Portugal (the last two due to their status of geographically high risk area for BSE). Others such as Belgium and the Netherlands have notified their intention to do the same. Others still, such as Italy and Finland, intend to anticipate this policy before the formal adoption of the regulation.
This proposal, based in Article 152of the Treaty aims for the simplification, consolidation and merging into a single legislative text, directly applicable in the Member States, a multitude of Directives (eighteen in total) adopted in a dispersed order over the last ten years to answer the requirements of the internal market and the crisis situations, and bases itself on measures already taken to improve food safety such as the obligatory pressure treatment of mammal waste and the exclusion of specific risk material from the food chain.
Commenting on this initiative, David Byrne, European Commission for Consumer and Health Protection, stated: "The fundamental aim of this proposal is to up-date the legislation in the veterinary field on by-products to bring it in line with stricter standards for the protection of human and animal health. All contamination of animal feed, be it by BSE, dioxins or other contaminants, represents a threat for food safety, which lands in the consumers plate. In the White Paper on food safety, we indicate that food safety is synonymous with security in each stage of the production chain, from the farm to the table. I feels that the safeguard and improvement of the quality of life of European citizens means that everything must be done to remove food scares. The proposal presented today is an ambitious text and with a considerable scope, which rests upon scientific data and on the political will to move consumer safety to the highest rank of priority".