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March 2007

THE EUROPEAN UNION

The Environmental Services Association celebrates Europes Environmental Leadership for the World

THE EU: an environmental timeline

On the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, todays European Union has evolved from a Common Market for six countries into a Union of 27 countries and 490 million people promoting many issues of direct importance to everyday life. ESA particularly celebrates the Unions positive environmental agenda which has improved human health and the environment in Europe. The Union drives Britains environmental agenda. Almost all our environmental law derives from EU law and European Environment Action Programmes have driven and must continue to drive policy to make both the economy and the environment more sustainable. Europe is also leading the global environmental Agenda. For example, with the UKs Labour Government leading from the front, the EU introduced a trading mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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Treaty of Rome, signed on 25 March, contains commitment to public safety, the protection of human or animal life or health, the preservation of plant life. Merger Treaty, signed in Brussels provides for a Single Commission and a Single Council of the then three European Communities (EEC, ECSC, Euratom). First Environmental Directive: on classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances. Directive establishing framework for measures to combat air pollution from motor vehicles. Waste Framework Directive: the current framework law for ESAs Members. Directive on Disposal of Waste Oils. Directive on the protection of birds and their habitats. Directive laying down minimum standards for drinking water. Directive on Environmental Impact Assessment. Single European Act permits Qualified Majority Voting for environmental decisions in specified circumstances. An environmental Title is added to the Treaty of Rome and environmental policy is required to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment, protect human health and secure resource efficiency. Policy is required to have regard for costs of action and inaction, to science and to the polluter pays principle. Environmental protection is required to be incorporated into all Community policy and Member States are allowed to exceed European environmental standards. Directives to limit the use and release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Maastricht Treaty on European Union extends Qualifed Majority voting and Co-Decision with the European Parliament to environmental policy to be implemented by Member States, asserts the precautionary principle, strengthens the Unions international mandate on environmental policy and requires the Union to act where it can be more effective than Member States. Habitats Directive, on the conservation of natural habitats and wild flora and fauna.

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Regulation on the control and shipment of wastes. European Environment Agency established. Directive on Packaging Waste. Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control. Treaty of Amsterdam confirms sustainable development and integration of the environment into other policies as core tasks for the Union and clarifies relevant decision making procedures. Communication on the competitiveness of the recycling industries. Cardiff Summit: developed integration of the environment into EU policy. Directive on the Landfill of Waste: the UKs main driver to increase recycling. Lisbon agenda to make Europes economy more efficient re-asserts environmental mission. Framework directive for European policy on water. Directive on end of life vehicles. Directive on the Incineration of Waste. Treaty of Nice reforms Institutions to cope better with enlargement of the Union. Sixth Environment Action Programme (6EAP: 2002-2012) identifies natural resources and waste as one of the Unions four key environmental priorities. Waste Statistics Regulation. Directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment. Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. Directive on Packaging Amended. Commission adopts Thematic Strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste and Thematic Strategy on Sustainable Use of Resources under 6EAP . Commission adopts Thematic Strategy on Soil under 6EAP . REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) Regulation. Regulation on the Shipments of Waste amended. Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (2007-2013).

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Published by Environmental Services Association, 154 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9TR

EUROPE:

much done, much more to do for the environment

major step forward to providing priority and coherence for treatment of biowaste. This is all good work which can strengthen Europe's economy, improve Europe's environment and directly improve the life of everyone living in Europe. The German Government is trying, by late June 2007, to get Member States to agree a negotiating position with the Parliament. We hope this position will broadly reflect the Parliament's achievement and that officials are not, for example, planning to deregulate as by-products what is currently and rightly treated as hazardous waste. As Europe matures, one big change must be made. There is no future in Europe adopting new environmental laws that are properly implemented in only some Member States. Europe's environmental laws need to be, and be seen to be, properly implemented across the Union. We do not say implementation of EU environmental law should pass from Member States. We do not say the Commission should stop being the Institution pursuing delinquent Member States in the European Court of Justice. We do however say that the time has come to change the character of the European Environment Agency. The

BUNDESUMWELTMINISTER SIGMAR GABRIEL President, Council of Ministers of the Environment

It is becoming more and more apparent that climate change is accelerating with vast environmental and economic implications. Germany holds the EU Presidency in the first half of 2007 and chairs the G8 throughout 2007, and in both these roles high priority will be given to climate protection and energy. We in the EU can together make a crucial contribution to setting the course for a future international climate regime. If we are to fulfil our responsibility towards future generations, we need an environmentally responsible industrial policy. This includes using resources efficiently and processing them in an environmentally compatible manner. Such a forward-looking industrial policy will also enhance employment and prosperity in the EU, and present a vital opportunity for Europe to lead the way as an innovative, competitive, socially and environmentally responsible global player in the 21st century.

The closing decades of the last Century saw Britain fall a generation behind European neighbours in terms of recovering value from waste. Britain landfilled waste cheaply and safely, and in the process gave Britain its main source of renewable energy, but it took the Landfill Directive to prod Britain into recovering more value from waste. With a long way still to go, there has been a 400% increase in household recycling since the Labour Government took office and a 600% increase in Scotland since Devolution. Looking ahead, Europe's task is to make real progress on both economic and environmental sustainability and to treat each as the complement of the other. This is an agenda where Britain can naturally lead as it did with carbon trading. Making a success of the REACH regime for chemicals and the new European Chemicals Agency is an imminent challenge. We also look forward to seeing how it is proposed that Europe will measure resource efficiency from 2008 as envisaged in the Sixth Environment Action Programme. As a sector uniquely placed both to recycle material and to help to stabilise the carbon cycle, ours has much to welcome from a valid indicator of resource efficiency and sustainability. Also, the Waste Statistics Regulation should bring necessary coherence to data informing EU waste policy. Our immediate sectoral priority is to secure a good new Waste Framework Directive. This

will probably complete its passage through the European Institutions during 2008. As Rapporteur, Dr Caroline Jackson MEP has done a brilliant job in the difficult task of bringing coherence and strength to the European Parliaments negotiating position

Dirk Hazell (left) with Minister of State Ben Bradshaw MP

with Member States. ESAs welcomes the European Parliaments support for extended producer responsibility; the polluter pays principle; improving the Commission's proposals for turning properly treated waste into a recycled product (compost being ESAs top priority); supporting open markets for recovery of waste; rejecting proposals to outlaw energy from waste facilities; recognising energy from landfill gas as recovery; closing a loophole which would have allowed Member States to deregulate hazardous waste and taking a

Agency must as a priority now be empowered and required to produce a public annual audit (for the Commission and the European Parliament) of enforcement and implementation by Member States regulators of EU environmental law. Such a change can bring real environmental benefit to the Unions 490 million people and help to secure a strong European marriage for the next 50 years between a sustainable economy and a sustainable environment.

Dirk Hazell, Chief Executive, ESA

BEN BRADSHAW MP Minister of State DEFRA The EU is the Environmental Union

Environmental problems need collective solutions. The European Union has been a consistently progressive force for environmental protection at home and worldwide. On waste, a striking example of the EUs international leadership is its ratification of the UN Basel Convention's ban on the export of hazardous wastes to developing countries. And the EUs controls on hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment are being replicated worldwide. There is a lot more we can do to prevent and recycle waste. The ESA and those it represents have a crucial part to play. But we can be proud of what the EU and the UK have achieved together so far.

PER-ANDERS HJORT Chairman Environmental Services Association

ESAs Members compete vigorously to offer innovative and safe solutions to reuse more of the material and energy in waste. This essentially benign process is ultimately driven by European law. As a Swede running the British operations of a French-owned environmental services group, I believe that for all Europes diversity, Europe as a whole gains if we can improve resource efficiency. We can enrich both Europes economy and Europes environment. In celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, perhaps we should also note that ours is the generation which determines whether Europes 100th anniversary can be marked by prosperity and environmental sustainability.

CAROLINE JACKSON MEP former Chair, European Parliament Environment Committee, current Rapporteur on the Waste Frame Directive Improve compliance with EU waste law

MICHAEL AVERILL President FEAD

The European Union and FEAD

PROFESSOR JACQUELINE MCGLADE Executive Director European Environment Agency

The scale of the environmental challenges facing us should not paralyse us into inaction. In fact, these challenges can help raise our awareness and develop new, sustainable patterns of living, growing, producing and consuming. Experience shows that EU environmental policy works. We have cleaned up our water and our air, phased out some ozone-depleting substances and have doubled rates of waste recycling. However, we must plan for the long term to deal with long term problems. The next generation of EU policy must become more farsighted and joinedup if it is to successfully deal with the environmental challenges facing us and future generations.

Europes initiatives on waste management affect how we all live and the European Parliament is comprehensively updating the 1975 Waste Framework Directive. Since the 1989 Community strategy for waste management, the watchwords of EU policy have been prevention, recycling and reuse, optimising final disposal and tight control of hazardous waste. There are three justifications for an EU policy in an area so dependent on local action: first, the EU is committed to constant improvement of the living and working conditions of its peoples; second, exclusively national policies could result in non-competitive practices; and third, without common standards waste could easily cross national frontiers to find the EUs cheapest destination. Britains biggest challenge is compliance with the Landfill Directive. The EUs biggest challenge to come is ensuring that waste law is complied with in the same way, everywhere.

The European Union has become the source of the law which today protects our environment and shapes the market for waste management and recycling services. In anticipation, FEAD was born in 1981 as a private sector European trade association to interface with the European Institutions. The founding members the national trade associations of Germany, France and the UK were soon supplemented by associations from other Member States and today the overwhelming majority are represented. FEAD is undergoing its first major reform since 1981 and should soon have new governing committees backed up by refocused technical committees, well-equipped to continue this important work. FEAD represents a competitive and innovative industry which makes its living from the environmental initiatives and challenges presented by the European Union. We look forward to the next 50 years.