Final report - IMPEL-TFS NCP Exchange Days 2011

Discussion Topic 3
Discussion at IMPEL TFS NCP Meeting September 2011, text base
from Norway:
Green Waste or not: classification issues due to diverging opinions or
criteria at different CAs
Background
Some material on classification is already found by the FAQ site and the
Correspondents’ Guidelines. But no guidance is given on cases of Green
Waste, generally seen, and in particular on the possible interface to
Illegal Waste, occurring in Europe or outside.
Problem frames and cases
The notion of Green Waste is given in the introduction of Annex III,
Regulation (EC) no 1013/2006 on shipments of waste. There are
mentioned two characteristics for negative identification of Green Waste
materials, related to not acceptable contamination, which:
• Increases the risks associated with the waste sufficiently
• Prevents the recovery of the wastes in an environmental sound
manner (ESM)
Even so, there are differences in opinion among different competent
authorities (CAs) on the choice of specific criteria for individual cases.
Several of these are related to exports to far-away countries like China or
India, using special Green Lists. Even specific shipment policies are
used: like, tough at the start (pre-treatment) or tough at the end (total
processing abroad)?
In some cases certain regulations are used, taken from other
environmental fields than waste shipment, like the dealing with ozone
depleting substances (ODS), mercury, brominated flame retardants
(BFR), light contaminations of radioactivity, explosive risk, etc.
Some materials or objects typically discussed for classification are
these: compressors, plastic from fridges, fridges, certain e-wastes, tires,
pre-treated used cars, car parts, rare earth minerals, mixtures of wastes,
catalysts, damaged items, illegally collected items, and materials with
unclear end-of-waste status.
Criteria groups
The following criteria groups (valid or not) are identified on the base of
known cases:
• Objects that may be used for illegal/unwanted purposes abroad
(like illegal ODS use)
• Objects, parts or resources having very short remaining life span
• Materials or objects that are badly processed according to known
standards (BAT)
• Contaminated materials that should not be used for recovery (or
reclamation)