final report - JRC IPTS - Sustainable Production and Consumption ...

OBJECTIVE AND TASK OF THIS STUDY
Background
This report has been prepared by ORBIT e.V. including its branch organisation the European Compost
Network ECN and a group of European experts which are members of ECN.
The study is issued in the context of the European Commission’s Waste Management Policy
(Thematic Strategy on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste, Proposal for a Revision of the Waste
Framework Directive; COM, 2005a[FA1]; COM, 2005b[FA2]) in order to support the Commission's DG
Joint Research Centre JRC in the development of end of waste concepts. The Institute for Prospective
Technological Studies (IPTS) of JRC is working in a research project to look at the science based
methodology that could be used to determine end of waste criteria e.g. for the case study of compost.
The introduction of end of waste provisions were initiated in order to
• improve environmental performance of recycled products as economic operators seek to attain
the level required for their recycled product no longer to be considered a waste;
• create greater legal certainty and predictability for purchasers and sellers of recycled products
or materials;
• achieve regulatory simplification for low-risk wastes used as secondary materials;
• facilitate the establishment of markets in and between the Member States;
• to promote the traceable quality assurance and certification systems which lead to a common
level playing field for compost production and marketing in all EU Member States.
The Commission has proposed to set environmental criteria at a high level to reduce environmental
risk. However, one very important pre-requisite is the existence of a viable market for the recycled
products.
Objectives
The study is intended as an input to the end of waste compost case study in order to obtain background
information about
• the material flows of the most important types of organic residues and wastes which are used for
the production of compost,
• the various areas of compost application
• the compost markets and
• the regulatory frame work in place in EU27.
Methodology and limitations
Main sources for the qualitative and quantitative estimations were data collections and statistics on
national and EU wide level. Our national partners of the European Compost Network, national and
European organisations in the area involved as well as colleagues from national Ministries of
Environment and Environment Agencies have been contacted via a questionnaire (see
acknowledgements and Annex 6). Important sources of information were earlier studies carried out by
or with participation of the authors such as a study on behalf the UK Waste & Resources Action
Programme (WRAP) by Hogg et al. (2002) which compared compost standards in the EU, North
America and Austrialasia and a European survey on the legal basis for the separate collection and
composting of organic waste (Amlinger, 1999)
The Questionnaire
Main tools for the collection of the quantitative and qualitative data about European organic material
streams for the report was a 15-page questionnaire which was sent mainly to the Country
Representatives (CR) of the European Compost Network/ECN. Contacting the CRs made it possible to
have only one main contact with a national background per country and execute some pressure on
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COMPOST PRODUCTION AND USE IN THE EU