The European Parliament and the Council reached a political agreement on 16th November on the future new Regulation on waste shipments. The Regulation aims to implement the EU’s obligations under the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Waste and Their Disposal (the Basel Convention), ensuring that the EU takes greater responsibility for its waste and does not export its environmental challenges to other countries. The new rules will also make it easier to use waste as a resource.
There are specific provisions to tackle shipments of plastic waste from the EU to non-OECD countries, with such shipments only being possible 5 years after entry into force of the Regulation if strict environmental conditions are met in the receiving country. In addition, the Regulation will make it easier to ship waste for recycling within the EU.
Stronger enforcement and cooperation measures will be put in place under the Regulation, including a cross-EU data hub and the creation of a new waste shipment enforcement group to aid prevention and detection of illegal shipments. Under the terms of the Regulation, the enforcement group is not open to third countries so it seems unlikely that the UK will be able to participate in this mechanism, although cooperation would continue under the auspices of the Basel Convention.
The new Regulation will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU, which is likely to be early in 2024. Once this happens, there will be potential divergence between the UK and the EU with the EU’s stronger measures meaning that the UK risks becoming a backmarker regarding transfrontier shipments.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash.