International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

or waste of low calorific value in order not to exceed the limit value, is not
admissible.’
In order to determine criteria for an environmentally sound process design and the
suitability of MBT material in accordance with the requirements of the Austrian
Landfill Ordinance, a Guideline for the Mechanical Biological Treatment of Waste 910
was elaborated by a working group chaired by the Ministry for Agriculture and
Forestry, Environment and Water Management. For obvious reasons, the focal points
for this guideline are different to those for compost. In particular, attention is given to
the characteristics which represent a desirable treatment from the point of view of
the end-point – the landfill – in particular, the respirometric. Equally, as made clear in
a report for the Umweltbundesamt, the lower limit on calorific value has the effect
that the biodegradable fraction of waste is split from higher calorific fractions which
are generally being used for thermal recovery. 911
The Ordinance, therefore, allows for the landfilling of waste where a fermentability
threshold was not exceeded (replacing the limit on carbon content). The limit value
suggested that the static respirometric index, measured using the AT4 methodology
(giving the cumulative biological activity over 96 hours), should be less than
7 mg O2 / g dm for all landfilled waste. The rationale behind this restriction was to
‘reduce reactions in the landfill body and respective production of landfill gas and
leachate’. 912 Either the carbon content of the waste, or its respirometric activity, could
be reduced by incineration or mechanical biological treatment facilities in order to
satisfy the conditions of the Ordinance.
An incineration tax is also applied in Austria. The level of the tax is set at €7 per
tonne. Because the Austrian Guidelines effectively require a splitting of the
biodegradable and non-biodegradable fractions, the quantity of material being
landfilled from an MBT process might be expected to be of the order 25-30% of the
input. A tax at €26 per tonne on 0.3 tonnes of stabilised waste landfilled is equivalent
to a tax on MBT of €6.50 to €8.66 per tonne of waste input to the MBT plant. This is
more or less equivalent to the €7 per tonne figure applied for incineration.
The Austrian system has been very effective in setting out what it aimed to do and
has evolved to appreciate the environmental externalities associated with landfilling
of waste with and without pre-treatment.
910 Federal Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry, Environment and Water Management (2001)
‘Guideline for the mechanical-biological treatment of waste’, delivered for notification to the European
Commission, 12 October 2001.
911 Lahl, Uwe, Barbara Zeschmar-Lahl and Thomas Angerer (2000) Entwicklungspotentiale der
Mechanisch-biologischem Abfällbehandlung, Monograph M-125, Wien, June 2000.
912 EIONET: European Topic Centre on Resource and Waste Management (2007) Austrian Waste
Factsheet, Accessed 16 th October 2008,
http://waste.eionet.europa.eu/facts/factsheets_waste/Austria
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