End-of-Waste criteria: latest developments

A draft Joint Research Centre (JRC) report on end of waste (EoW) criteria for waste paper has been published. The paper recommends that waste paper complying with all the criteria can lose its waste status even prior to being recycled/recovered, which means in effect that the operations prior to the recycling (sorting, separating, cleaning, or grading) are considered as the completed recovery process.

In addition, a JRC report entitled: “End-of-waste Criteria for Copper and Copper Alloy Scrap: Technical Proposals” has also just been published. The report contains a summary of end-of-waste criteria (see page 105), which are very similar to the ones adopted for iron & steel and aluminium scrap and the proposed criteria for waste paper.

The report is available from here:
http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=4259

Regarding waste derived fuels, the European Commission awarded a study on suitability of different waste derived fuels for end-of-waste status to Umweltbundesamt GmbH, Austria, to assess the suitability of different types of waste-derived fuels for end-of-waste. In this regard, CEMBUREAU will take part in a stakeholder consultation in September and, amongst others, will provide data as input for the study. The results of the study may be used by the JRC in order to produce end-of-waste criteria for waste derived fuels.

In relation to aggregates, a study on methodological aspects regarding limit values (control of release) for pollutants in aggregates has been awarded by the Commission to DHI consultancy (Denmark). In this respect CEMBUREAU notes that the list of aggregates is very large, and includes aggregates from material previously used in construction and from industrial processes (in particular fly ash, bottom ash and boiler ash from household waste incineration).

CEMBUREAU will provide information on aggregates which can be used as a cement constituent and as an aggregate for concrete according to the standards and technical specifications to the consultant.