Influence of the revised German waste law on the source separated collection of organic waste and recyclables

As of December 2008 the Directive 2008/98/EG of the European Parliament and the European Council (Waste Framework Directive) came into force. Target of the Directive is to reduce the harmful effects on the processing and management of wastes, and the total effects on the resources consumption and to improve the resource efficiency of Waste Management. The Waste Framework Directive should have been implemented in national legislation until December 12th, 2011.

In connection with the implementation of the EU Legislation the existing Closed substance Cycle and Waste Management Law/Waste Law (KrW-/AbfG) shall be advanced by the new 'Law to support the closed substance cycle and to assure the sustainable management of wastes (Closed Substance Cycle Management Act - KrWG). The core of the new German waste law KrWG is the new five stages waste hierarchy. It stipulates the sequence of the stages as of waste avoidance, recycling, re-use and others, among them energy recovery of wastes and finally the waste disposal step. From the aspect of environmental protection priority must be given to the best option. Technical, economic and social impacts have to be considered besides the ecological effects.

The new German waste law KrWG was adopted by the Federal Parliament in Germany on 10/28/2011 and then forwarded to the Federal Council. On the meeting of 11/25/2011 it decided to call the Arbitration Commission, whereby criticism of the regulations is directed to the legal obligation to hand-over waste in the context of commercial collection (§ 17, article 3). No agreement was achieve in the Arbitration Commission between the Federal Parliament and the Federal Council and thus the decision was postponed until 2012. The next meeting of the Arbitration Commission will be in the third week of January 2012 and the next meeting of the Federal Council Germany is on 10th February 2012.

 

 

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