Friends of the Earth (Malta) today called on EU Environment Ministers to reject a plan to redefine waste incineration from ‘disposal’ to ‘recovery’, arguing that the redefinition would promote environmentally-damaging incineration and is, in any case, unnecessary.

Under current EU law, most incinerators are defined as disposal installations, and installations can only be defined as ‘recovery’ (a step up the waste hierarchy) if their ‘primary purpose’ is the generation of energy ­ i.e. if waste was not available they would buy in fuel. The Commission has proposed a new ‘efficiency equation’ to define recovery instead ­ but even the UK’s Environment Agency has stated that they believe that this equation will not have any environmental benefits.

The Environment Council, which is set to decide its position on the revision of the Waste Framework Directive at its meeting on Thursday 28th in Luxembourg, is currently split on this issue, with a blocking minority opposing the redefinition. The European Parliament deleted the redefinition formula in its first reading vote on February 13th 2007.

Friends of the Earth said: “EU governments should be focussing on promoting recycling and waste prevention, as these give real gains in climate and resource efficiency. Incineration is a climate problem, not a climate solution, and should be being phased out, not encouraged.”

“This redefinition has no environmental benefits, it is happening because of problems with laws

in a few Member States. These problems should be solved within those Member States, not by damaging our EU environment laws”

“We are concerned about the increased health risks created by this potential promotion of incineration, and strongly believe it should be rejected,”