Europe to amend status of waste?

Contractors could see their spoil disposal costs fall if the European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) wins a vote this week to clarify the status of uncontaminated material that isgets moved off site.

Around 1,000 m tonnes of excavated material is moved annually by European Union (EU) contractors both within and off site.

Where material is re-used on the same site, public administrators generally do not consider it as waste, although this is regarded as an informal interpretation and has not always been supported by the European Court of Justice. The challenge comes when the uncontaminated material is moved to another site. Currently the EUuropean Union’s view is to regarded it as waste, following a vote last December.

Contractors therefore have to obtain a waste licence to handle the material as well as incurring escalating costs in paying for its disposal on on landfill sites.But a vote, which is due this week in the Environmental Committee of the European Parliament, could change all that. An amendment has been put forward to exclude from the scope of the Waste Fframework Ddirective: “uncontaminated excavated natural materials which can be used in their natural state, either on the same site or on another site.”

An FIEC ( FIEC) spokesman said: “The vote is stahanding on a knife edge with the g Ggreens opposing us.” If the amendment fails, he says: “This change in status will lead to a considerable increase in the waste volume produced by the construction sector, implying considerable additional costs and administrative burdens.

“Such material could have been immediately re-used in filling or making up levels, thereby fulfilling the objectives of the Thematic Strategy of the Commission regarding the reduction in the quantity of ‘waste’ sent to landfill.” A spokesman for the Construction Conf Federation said: “It is important that this amendment succeeds as because it makes sense. It will reduce potential increases in cost and is environmentally sound.” “

If they succeed in getting the amendment passed the issue has two further hurdles to overcome next year;, at a plenary session, then at the Council of Environment Ministers before it becomes law.

[Contract Journal, 29 November 2006, p13]