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

52.2.4.4 Finland
In 1993, two years before Finland joined the EU, the Waste Management Act of 1978
was updated and split into two complementary pieces of legislation, the Waste Act
and the Waste Decree. 913 A year later, the Waste Tax Act was implemented requiring
that tax was to be paid on waste deposited at landfills. The tax, on the landfill of
waste, was implemented in 1996 to stimulate waste minimisation and material
reuse, and to reduce landfilling.
Since January 2005, the tax rate has been € 30 per tonne. The tax was introduced
against a background of a low cost of waste management, so that the increases had
a significant impact on the cost of disposal. 914
A landfill ban was introduced following the 2006 amendment (202/2006) to the
Government Decision on Landfills (861/1997). This amended Decision set general
restrictions on the depositing of wastes in landfill. Since that time, in addition to those
wastes banned under the Landfill Directive, household waste, or similar, where the
biodegradable fraction has not been separately collected may not be deposited in a
landfill. The pre-treatment requirement effectively requires the waste to be stabilized
before landfilling. The instrument does, therefore, afford the municipalities some
flexibility giving them the choice to decide whether separate collections or new
treatment infrastructure are most viable, but with the same aim of reducing the
quantity of BMW landfilled.
Anecdotal evidence from waste officers in Finland suggest that the ‘ban’ in current
form is, however, ineffective an unenforceable. An EEA report notes: 915
743
The government enacted a landfill ban for certain waste streams partly as a
result of the EU's debate on the Landfill Directive. The ban prohibits landfilling
biodegradable waste 'from which the major part of the biodegradable waste
has not been collected separately'. The wording is rather vague and does not
refer to the aim of removing a minimum of 80 % organic matter before waste
is landfilled, which features in the country's Waste Plan 2002. As a result, it
leaves room for interpretation of what 'the major part' is. Although, the 2002
Waste Plan provided that more detailed restrictions for the landfill of
biodegradable waste would be passed in 2003, this was not implemented till
2006.
Consequently Finland is redesigning a stricter ban to be implemented in the near
future. The most recent National Waste Plan states: 916
913 EIONET: European Topic Centre on Resource and Waste Management (2007) Finland Waste
Factsheet, Accessed 16 th October 2008,
http://waste.eionet.europa.eu/facts/factsheets_waste/Finland
914 H. Bartelings, P. van Beukering, O. Kuik, V. Linderhof, F. Oosterhuis, L. Brander and A. Wagtendonk
(2005) Effectiveness of Landfill Taxation, R-05/05, Report Commissioned by Ministerie von VROM,
November 24, 2005.
915 EEA (2009) Diverting Waste from Landfill: Effectiveness of Waste Management Policies in the
European Union, EEA Report No 7.
International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes