Waste management: landfill

The common position incorporates either totally or in part 13 of the 33 amendments proposed by the European Parliament at first reading. Apart from the changes resulting from the European Parliament's amendments most of the changes in the common position tend to make the proposal less stringent by introducing new exemptions and by extending time frames. They deal mainly with the following aspects: - definitions: the period of exemption for temporary storage prior to recovery or treatment has been extended from one to three years. The definitions of isolated settlements or small islands have been modified. A new parameter for areas with difficult access has been introduced. Also, the total capacity of exempted landfill sites on small islands has been increased from 10 000 tonnes to 15 000 tonnes where the annual intake does not exceed 1 000 tonnes; - scope: an exemption for landfill of non-hazardous waste other than inert waste from mining activities has been included. Exemptions have been included for water control, leachate management and control of gas provided for in Annex I and Annex III for underground storage; - wastes and treatments not permitted in landfills: the aim of reducing biodegradable waste to 75% in 2002, 50% in 2005 and 25% in 2010 have been modified, becoming 75% in 2006, 50% in 2009 and 35% in 2016. Furthermore, a possibility of exemption (of up to four years for the Member States which deposit over 80% of the waste collected in landfills) and a revision clause have been introduced; - waste permitted in the various categories of landfills: the possibility of eliminating stable, non- reactive hazardous wastes from landfills for non-hazardous wastes has been introduced; - cost of the landfill of waste: the period considered for estimating the costs involved in the closure and aftercare of the closed landfill is changed from 50 years to 30 years; - existing landfills: the period within which existing landfills must conform to the directive has been extended from five to eight years. For existing landfills for hazardous wastes, the period has been changed from two years to one year for certain provisions of the directive and increased from two to three years for other provisions of the directive; - general requirements for all classes of landfills (Annex I): the requirement seeking to specify a uniform minimum distance between landfills and residential areas has been deleted; - waste acceptance criteria and procedures (Annex II): this annex has had added to it the various criteria for acceptance which must be determined by the technical committee. �