A Long And Winding Road From Legal Framework To Real Changes In Waste Management

Transcription

1 Theo Schneider, Ressource Abfall GmbH, Elze, Louis-Krüger-Straße 1 B, , , mail@ressource-abfall.de A Long And Winding Road From Legal Framework To Real Changes In Waste Management Dipl. Ing. Theo Schneider, Ressource Abfall GmbH; Dipl. Ing. Gernod Dilewski, Infrastruktur und Umwelt; M. A. Fanny Jacquesson, Infrastruktur und Umwelt; CONTACT Dipl. Ing. Theo Schneider, Ressource Abfall GmbH, (+) , mail@ressource-abfall.de EXECUTIVE SUMMARY To pass a new waste management law seems to be for many countries an important step towards the improvement of environmental and living conditions. But it is not the end of a sometimes long and winding road of policy making. It is also the beginning of another often even more difficult implementation process. Some examples from Germany, Morocco and Philippines illustrate issues related to this process. These case studies are presented in a systematic frame of analysis. On the one hand, a new waste management law determines a strategy and sets objectives and responsibilities. On the other hand, political processes, financing mechanisms and cooperation between various geographical and institutional levels in more or less centralized countries determine how these aims can be achieved. Some aspects of a waste management system might be successfully implemented with a stepwise proceeding and solutions worked out to bridge the gap between national legal setup and local framework conditions. Civil society, private and political interests have to be taken into account. Support from international experience might be helpful for structuring the implementation process, as long as local human, financial and technical resources are being taken into account. However, one of the most important success factors remains the will to implement changes by local and regional stakeholders. INTRODUCTION A new waste management law or a major change within the existing legal setup seems to be for many countries an important step towards the improvement of environmental and living conditions. Such legal changes are often the outcome of a long policy making process. However, some international examples shall illustrate the difficulties which are likely to appear afterwards, during the implementation process, confronting the national legal set-up to the local conditions.

2 SYSTEMATIC APPROACH The following case studies are structured along the same pattern: a) The legal setting is shortly described, b) The way given to implement on local level is shown by some examples, c) Main difficulties are highlighted as well as d) Strategies to solve problems e) and their limits must be mentioned to improve future practices in legislation and implementation. EXAMP LES Germany This case study deals with the processes of change which took place after the German TASi (Technical Instruction on Municipal Waste) from 1993 was established and fully implemented until June a) Legal setting After an increasing number of uncontrolled dumps caused major water and air pollution problems, the first federal waste management act was passed in After important amendments were made, it was replaced in 1994 by the Closed Substance Cycle and Waste Management Act (KrW-/AbfG). This act, completed by several ordinances later on, is still a cornerstone of the German legal framework in the field of waste management. Within this German legal framework for waste management, a new waste treatment regulation was defined in the early 90ies. The German TASi (Technical Instruction on Municipal Waste) from 1993, concerning the disposal of wastes, was also a key feature of this legal set-up. It was replaced by the Waste Disposal Ordinance in 2001, banning the disposal of untreated household waste and similar waste on landfills. This total ban, much more ambitious than foreseen by the EU landfill directive, had to be implemented until June b) The way given to implement on local level Besides some differences between federal states, the responsibility for the implementation of the TASi was attributed to districts or large municipalities. Tasks assigned to them and the implementation schedule were defined by law. The aim was clear: instead of the disposal of untreated household waste and similar waste on controlled landfills (which was quite an advanced technical facility at this time) a treatment or pre-treatment by incineration or MBT had to be implemented. For districts and municipalities already operating an incineration plant, nothing had to change. The others which were the larger number of about 400 districts and large municipalities often launched project studies or feasibility reports to find out which treatment technologies and combinations of them would be the best solution to achieve the TASi aims. Some intended to prepare plants of their own to match with the requirements (MEYER, SCHNEIDER, WIEGEL, 1996). Others prepared tender procedures to select a private company or other local waste management authority to deal with their waste for the next 10 to 20 years (PRIEBS, 2003).

3 The way of implementation was indeed not in detail prescribed by law, but the objective to be achieved led in most cases to the development of incineration plants. c) Main difficulties On the example of the city and region of Hannover and other districts, following main difficulties could be identified. Critical discussions were often held within the responsible political councils and in the media. These discussions concentrated on issues like - widespread disapproval of waste incineration, - increased waste disposal costs for large districts and municipalities, which had made high investment in the past years, were not taken into account by the TASi. - fear that some waste management authorities wouldn t do anything and that their costs for waste treatment would be lower than by those, who were acting as intended by the legal framework, - the implicit promotion of incineration as one and only pre-treatment of household waste, - hope and fear that there would be a change of this legal setting after oncoming federal elections, - fear of overcapacity for waste treatment, - fear of lack of capacity for waste treatment after 2005, June 1 st. These discussions were also affected by changes of waste quantities that the local waste management authorities received and expected, because of this new legal set-up (PRIEBS, 2003). d) Strategies to solve problems The national ministry of environment increased its pressure on the federal states environmental ministries reasonably after the year And the federal states environmental ministries increased pressure to the local waste management authorities (BEZIRKSREGIERUNG HANNOVER, 1997). E. g. about all three months the heads of the local waste management authorities in lower Saxony were invited to the ministry s subordinated administration in order to discuss progress and problems. Other organizations also increased the pressure on institutions that seemed to be late or not doing enough to fulfil the commitments. Some precursor federal state ministries developed a program for the adaption of the new standards applying different possible technologies. Pilot projects were supported and in some regions implemented. MBT as a pre-treatment was invented as a solution allowing the use of the investments recently made into landfills (with an amortization period of often 30 to 40 years). Within the Waste Disposal Ordinance from 2001, MBT was accepted as regular pre-treatment under defined conditions of quality and certain security precautions for landfill. These efforts managed to reach the objectives on June 1 st, 2005 in general. e) and their limits Nevertheless, within the first two years after the deadline, a reasonable amount of waste had to be stored intermediately (in larger facilities) before their final treatment. Some relatively small quantities of household waste and similar waste also disappeared. Rumours that some waste was being disposed of in mining facilities, which were not

4 primarily controlled by the environmental laws and authorities, later proved in some cases to be true. The economic problems induced by the new TASi and the Waste Disposal Ordinance were left to the districts and municipalities. They were forced to charge their population with higher fees for waste collection and treatment. This issue sometimes played a role during campaigns for local elections and in some cases even led to political majority changes. Morocco This case study deals with the still ongoing implementation of the Moroccan Waste Management Law adopted in 2006, which sets the first comprehensive national legal framework in this field. a) Legal setting The Waste Management Law 28/00, adopted in 2006, sets environmental objectives, obligations and standards for the management of solid wastes. It also assigns responsibilities in this field to institutions at the national, regional, provincial and municipal level. Each of these institutions has to elaborate a waste management plan within 5 years up to the end of Municipalities are in charge of the organization of household waste management services. They are supposed to establish their waste management plans in accordance to the dispositions of the provincial management plans. b) The way given to implement on local level As required by the law, waste management plans have been launched in several provinces up to now, with the support of representatives from the ministries of the environment and of the interior. For the implementation of the planned measures, a national waste management program, financed among others through a development policy loan from the World Bank, was set up in 2007 in order to financially support local authorities. c) Main difficulties On the example of the province of Tétouan, in the north of Morocco (about 600,000 inhabitants) following main difficulties could be identified: - Sustainable financing schemes for municipal waste management services still have to be established and sufficient resources have to be allocated to waste treatment and disposal. The introduction of a new waste management tax charged by municipalities for their waste management services, as foreseen by the law, is not being applied. - There is a gap between urban cities and rural villages, in terms of existing waste management infrastructures, priorities, resources and willingness to participate to an inter-municipal waste management concept. - There is also a gap between expectations from the responsible national ministries on the one hand and local priorities on the other hand. - The identification of an appropriate new landfill site proved to be a very difficult issue. Only one landfill with some characteristics of a controlled and well-organized landfill exists. Most municipalities dispose of their wastes on uncontrolled dumps and practice illegal burning of waste.

5 - Awareness about environmental problems related to waste seems to be relatively low. - There is no department specifically dedicated to waste management in the provincial administration. d) Strategies to solve problems Both the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of the Interior are implied in the implementation of the new waste management legal framework, recognizing as well the technical, institutional and financial matters at stake in this process. International organizations, which have already contributed to the elaboration of the legal framework (World Bank, GTZ, KfW) also provide assistance during its implementation. International best practices as well as local pilot projects have contributed to the search for adapted solutions. Engineering companies are assigned to assist provincial administrations in the elaboration of their provincial waste management plans. These engineering companies are supposed to work in cooperation with two committees, the one composed of political stakeholders and the other one composed of technical experts. e) and their limits Despite important efforts and support coming from the national Ministries and international organizations, local authorities often lack of human resources, technical experience and awareness regarding environmental hazards related to wastes. The introduction of a waste management tax is especially a difficult task, from a technical as well as political point of view. The unclear situation about the financial room for manoeuvre of local institutions hampers the planning of realistic waste management scenarios. Possibilities of new financing structures and the balance between state subsidies and own local resources should have been clarified in the first place. Difficulties related to the identification of a new landfill site are quite natural processes reflecting local political interests and NIMBY behaviors. Awareness raising measures and the empowerment of an environmental authority standing for common public interests should counterbalance these blocking factors. Philippines This case study deals with the implementation of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 of the Philippines. These regulations are very much oriented towards the recent targets and strategies in industrialized countries and put the main emphasis on waste as a resource that can be recovered, reused and recycled. a) Legal setting In the Philippines all policies, rules, regulations and prohibitions on solid waste management are embodied in Republic Act RA 9003 is An Act Providing for an Ecological Solid Waste Management Program, Creating the Necessary Institutional Mechanics and Incentives, Declaring Certain Acts Prohibited and Providing Penalties, Appropriating Funds Therefore, and for Other Purposes. This national law also known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 was approved by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on January 26, 2001 Among the salient features of RA 9003 and its Implementing Rules and Regulations are:

6 It emphasizes the preparation solid waste management plans for each LGU. It mandated the closure of all open and controlled dumpsites five years after the effectivity of the law. It defines very ambitious standards for waste disposal to the implemented within five years. It stipulates mandatory waste diversion of twenty 25% within five years after the effectivity of the Act which should be increased every three years, through reuse, recycling, and composting. b) The way given to implement on local level In the Philippines the LGUs are responsible for implementation (and financing) of solid waste management services. Before 2000 in most of the larger LGUs these services comprised of a more or less functioning waste collection service and the disposal on dumpsites. In many smaller LGUs not even these basic services did exist. With the RA 9003, all LGUs now had to face the challenge to develop their mostly very basic services into advanced solid waste management systems within just a few years. Initially, support from national government to the LGUs, both in terms of financing and technical assistance, was very limited. So, in the first years the LGUs in the Philippines were more or less overwhelmed with the task of implementing RA 9003 as a result from uncertainty about what to do and the fear of high financial commitment the general tendency was to postpone important decisions rather than to take immediate action. As of January 31, 2008, 271 SWM plans of the total number of 1,610 LGUs of the country have been submitted to the national authorities for approval. Thus the number of submitted plans represented only about 16%. Similarly, just 14% of the open dumps in the Philippines have been officially closed until end of In other words: only very few landfills in the Philippines complied with the national standards for waste disposal and most of the solid waste in the Philippines still was disposed on uncontrolled dumpsites. c) Main difficulties Considering the low number of submitted solid waste management plans, the large number of open dumps, and the very few sanitary landfills in the country, compliance to RA 9003 even today still is very low. Major reasons for the low compliance to RA 9003 include: - The costs for implementation of RA 9003 have by far been under estimated. Especially the realization of sanitary landfills is a burden that many LGUs are reluctant to shoulder. - In parallel expectations towards recycling and composting as low cost (or possibly revenue generating) opportunities proved to be unrealistic. - A full cost recovery from local service fees would have multiplied the tariffs to be paid by the population. On the one side LGU Mayors, being elected for a period of three years, are very reluctant to impose such fees. On the other side, for many people the respective tariff levels are simply not affordable. - Cooperation among LGUs, which for example in many cases is required for realization of sanitary landfills, has been turned out to be very difficult. So far only very few cooperations have been implemented successfully. d) Strategies to solve problems

7 Strategies to support the implementation of RA 9003 include: - Standards for waste disposal have been adapted and landfill categories (with different standards) have been defined according to waste amounts thus making new landfills more affordable especially for smaller LGUs. - Enforcement mechanism have been developed, in order to control the progress of implementation and to identify and penalize non compliance - Technical assistance and capacity building is offered on different levels strengthening National and regional authorities responsible for licensing, supervision, and enforcement, LGUs staff responsible for planning and implementation of solid waste management - Financial support programs have been developed for financing larger investments such as new sanitary landfills e) and their limits Overall is must be said that RA 9003 in many ways was too ambitious. Especially, the financial implications have not been taken into account, sufficiently. High costs (and lack of full cost recovery) will remain a limiting factor in the implementation of RA Furthermore, it takes time to build up capacity in LGUs and to increase the public awareness (as a precondition to support the new system). CONCLUSIONS To pass a new waste management law is not the end of a sometimes long and winding road of policy making. It is also the beginning of another often even more difficult process of implementation. There is often a gap between the legal setting on the one hand, hopefully imitating successful foreign examples, and on the other hand, the reality of policy implementation within the local context. Beyond the myth of best practices, human, financial and technical resources have to be taken into account. A waste management law passed at the national level is likely to get confronted to other priorities, personal and political interests at the local level. Appropriate social, economic and institutional action levers therefore have to be identified. These comprise among others: raising politicians and public s awareness and acceptance for different measures and disposal facilities as these are necessary for an improvement of the situation; setting up sustainable financial mechanisms to finance the proposed measures; promoting the cooperation between various geographical and institutional levels, as some legal features and technical advices often need to be defined more precisely during the implementation process; dealing with the integration of waste pickers into more organized recycling activities of separate collection of valuable waste fractions Some parts of a waste management system might be helpfully implemented with a stepwise proceeding. Nevertheless, public and political debates are likely to occur on this way. Discussions with politicians and local administration must be included into the time

8 planning. Incentives and support by state government for good implementation examples might be one way to improve the real situation faster. Support from international experience might be helpful for structuring the implementation process within the development of a local or regional waste management plan. Most important remains the will to implement changes and improvement into reality by local and regional stakeholders. The given examples show how this might be done, without denying their limits. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors like to thank the kingdom of Morocco s ministries of interior and environment as well as the GTZ for their support within the first integrated waste management plan. REFERENCES BEZIRKSREGIERUNG HANNOVER, 1997; Vollzug der TA Siedlungsabfall (TASi) für die Deponie Hannover-Altwarmbüchen der Landeshauptstadt Hannover, Anordnung vom MEYER, SCHNEIDER, WIEGEL, 1996; Auswahlprozess für eine Restabfallbehandlung am Beispiel der Landeshauptstadt Hannover, in Müll und Abfall Nr. 8, August 1996, p. 519 ff. PRIEBS, 2003; Abfallwirtschaft, in Die Region Hannover - Eine erste Bilanz, Schriftenreihe der niedersächsischen Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2003, p. 143 ff