EC as regards the hazardous property HP 14 (ʻEcotoxic’) - Main contents

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dossier	COM(2017)23 - Amendment of Annex III to Directive 2008/98/EC as regards the hazardous property HP 14 (ʻEcotoxic’).
source	COM(2017)23
date	19-01-2017

A comprehensive review of Annex III to Directive 2008/98/EC on waste (Waste Framework Directive), which establishes properties of waste which render it hazardous, was undertaken in 2014 through Commission Regulation (EU) No 1357/2014. The main aims of that review were to adapt the properties of waste to technical and scientific progress and to align, to the extent possible, the identification of hazardous wastes with the criteria of the Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (the CLP Regulation).

The only hazardous property not amended during that review was hazardous property HP 14 “Ecotoxicˮ, as it was considered that the knowledge basis for the assessment of that property needed to be further improved.

At present we are in a legal vacuum as concerns the assessment of ecotoxicity: the existing 'Note' in Annex III to the Waste Framework Directive states that the attribution of hazardous property HP 14 is to be made on the basis of the criteria laid down in Annex VI to Council Directive 67/548/EEC which has been repealed as of 1 June 2015.

To address the legal vacuum and the lack of harmonisation concerning the attribution of hazardous property HP 14 “Ecotoxicˮ, the Commission submitted a draft Regulation for vote in the Committee established under Article 39 of the Waste Framework Directive. The Committee did not give a favourable opinion on the draft Regulation in its meeting of 25 October 2016.

The main concerns expressed by the Committee related to (1) the need to clarify that Member States may still apply test methods to assess ecotoxicity and (2) the likelhood that the calculation formulae envisaged by the Commission would lead to a change of classification from non-hazardous to hazardous of certain wastes types and that would impact negatively on the recycling of those wastes due to increasing costs of managing the waste. The waste types mentioned in this context were incineration bottom ash and shredder residues.

Thus, in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 5a of Council Decision 1999/468/EC, a Proposal for a Council Regulation is submitted to Council and forwarded to the European Parliament.