Waste management: landfill

At second reading under cooperation procedure, the decision on common position 49/98/EC established by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Directive on the landfill of waste was adopted by the European Parliament. This recommendation by Caroline F. Jackson (PPE,UK) amends the common position in the following areas: - defining landfill of waste as the option of last resort in the hierarchy of prevention, recovery, recycling, incineration and landfill; - asking the Commission to propose a directive on composting and biomethanisation; - providing for the option of using economic instruments such as a tax on waste going to landfill to achieve the objectives of the proposed directive; - ensuring that the price charged for waste disposal in a landfill reflects the true cost for the whole lifetime of a landfill and that these costs are not borne by the public purse; - making a much more specific definition of "liquid waste"; - making a distinction between non-hazardous and inert waste; - requiring a stricter limit on biodegradable municiple waste going to landfills no later than 15 years after the date laid down in Article 18(1) - namely 25 rather than 35% of the total amount (by weight) of such waste as defined by standardised Eurostat data for 1995 or the latest available year before that; - requiring Member States to give a progress report to the Commission at each of the three stages and the Commission to report to the European Parliament within 3 months on the extent to which the targets are being met and any according adjustments to the directive which may be needed. - allowing any Member States which, according to the standardised data mentioned above, put more than 80% of their collected municipal waste to landfill to postpone the attainment of the targets for two and not four years; - penalising any failure by Member States to give the Commission prior warning of such a decision and requiring the Commission to inform the European Parliament of such a decision; - tightening up the provision on measures to be taken by Member States to ensure that the cost of the financial security or its equivalent for a landfill site is covered by the price to be charged by the operator for waste disposal in that site; - making the proposed site register on quantities of waste deposited publicly available; - specifying that responsibility for monitoring the site after its closure will rest with the operator for at least 30 years unless he can prove that it is no longer a threat to the environment; - requiring Member States to close down any landfill sites which haven't been granted a permit under framework Directive 75/442/EEC on waste; - Shortening from 8 to 5 years the time period allowed for landfills already in operation at the time of transposition of the proposed directive to comply with the steps outlined in the proposal and hence be allowed to continue operating; - suggesting minimum guidelines for the distances from the boundary of the site to residential and recreational areas, waterways, water bodies and other agricultural and urban sites; - specifying that the leachate collection and sealing system,required for landfills by the proposal, must cover the landfill base, sides and surface and ensure that leachate accumulation cannot enter the subsoil but can be collected and drawn off; - limiting the drainage layer for the leachate collection and sealing system from greater than or equal to 0.5 metres to greater than or equal to 0.3 metres.�