European hazardous waste management improving, but its prevention needs attention

News Published 16 Dec 2016 Last modified 04 Jul 2018

1 min read

Despite improvements in hazardous waste management, more measures would be required to prevent the build-up of hazardous waste across Europe, according to a European Environment Agency (EEA) report released today. The report reviews the application of waste prevention programmes across European countries regarding waste types that are considered to be most dangerous to human health and the environment.

Image © Stipe Surac, Waste•smART/EEA

The EEA report ‘Prevention of hazardous waste in Europe – the status in 2015,’ is the third annual review of waste prevention programmes done by the EEA. This year’s review focuses on the prevention of hazardous waste that is one of the priorities of environmental policies in Europe. The assessment looks at current trends in the amounts of hazardous waste generated both in Europe and in individual countries, based on the latest data available. It provides an overview of waste prevention objectives, targets, indicators, and measures.

At a reported 100 million tonnes, hazardous waste accounted for close to 4% of the 2.5 billion tonnes of waste generated across the European Union in 2012. The predominant types of hazardous waste were mineral and solidified wastes, chemical and medical wastes, with the waste management, construction, mining and quarrying, and household sectors as the top sources. Total hazardous waste generation has increased slightly since 2008, according to the report.

More than half of the reviewed waste prevention programmes include measures to reduce the generation of hazardous waste. Most of the measures are linked to curbing production and including bans on toxic materials. However, prevention of hazardous waste appears to have lower priority than management aspects, and limited financial support. Prioritisation at the EU level is one of the drivers for better prevention at national or regional levels, the report says.

The report also raises data quality issues, and highlights that changes in waste classification and definition of hazardous waste cause reporting and interpretation problems and may affect the accuracy and comparability of national data. This is also likely to affect national target setting and indicator development.

More information about waste prevention programmes is available in individual country/region fact sheets.

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Related publications

Prevention of hazardous waste in Europe — the status in 2015 The report ‘Prevention of hazardous waste in Europe – the status in 2015’ is the third in a series of annual reviews of waste prevention programmes in Europe as stipulated by the Waste Framework Directive. EU Member States are obliged to adopt waste prevention programmes, while EEA is invited to carry out review on their completion and implementation.

Waste prevention The Waste Framework Directive (EEC, 1975, revised 2008) set a legal obligation for EU Member States to adopt waste prevention programmes by 12 December 2013. The waste hierarchy, the guiding framework for EU and national waste policies, gives the highest priority to waste prevention, followed by (preparing for) reuse, recycling, other recovery and disposal. The analysis of waste prevention initiatives is based on harmonised country/region 'abstracts', which facilitate cross programme comparison. The comparison includes the coverage of waste prevention programmes, as well as the scope, overall objectives, targets, indicators, monitoring systems as well as the approach to evaluating objectives and targets.

Waste prevention in Europe The Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) set a legal obligation for European Union (EU) Member States to adopt waste prevention programmes by 12 December 2013. The European Environment Agency (EEA) was invited to carry out an annual review of the progress made towards the ‘completion and implementation of the programmes’, the first of which was completed for 2013. The publications and individual fact sheets found here are part of a series of reviews of waste prevention programmes in Europe. The review process covers programmes in the 28 EU Member States and the three European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, namely Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

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European hazardous waste management improving, but its prevention needs attention