Stakeholder consultation on the appropriateness of setting targets for bio-waste recycling

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1 France Nature Environnement January /8 Contacts : Penelope Vincent-Sweet Pilot of the Waste network penelopevs@numericable.fr / France Nature Environnement 57 rue Cuvier Paris cedex 05 Hélène Bourges - Chargée de la campagne Alternatives helene@cniid.org Tel : Centre national d'information indépendante sur les déchets (Cniid) 21, rue Alexandre Dumas Paris Stakeholder consultation on the appropriateness of setting targets for bio-waste recycling REPLY from FRANCE NATURE ENVIRONNEMENT (founder member of the EEB, registration number ) supported by the CNIID, Centre National d'information Indépendante sur les Déchets, French national NGO Introduction FNE and the CNIID have followed closely development in biowaste policy for many years both in France and in Europe. FNE replied to the consultation on the green paper, and both organisations were somewhat disappointed by the impact analysis and the unrealistic assumptions imposed on the consultants. However, despite the initial bias, the consultants reached the conclusion that a proactive policy to improve biowaste prevention and recycling would have substantial benefits in both environmental and economic terms. Our organisations were therefore extremely surprised that the Commission stuck to its original position opposed to a biowaste directive, which would have provided a framework to advance together towards improved biowaste management and thus better environmental protection and a level playingfield. They were particularly puzzled by the statement that there were no policy gaps that could prevent MS from taking appropriate action, since before the EU was formed there were indeed no such policy gaps, but we were under the (mistaken?) impression that one of the roles of the EU was to harmonise policies and rules and help the members to move forward. We do accept that directives are not the only way to harmonise rules and improve policies, so we are delighted that the Commission is taking seriously the option of drawing up recycling targets for organic waste, which in our view is a crucial element in progress towards better biowaste management, as we shall explain below. We should like to warn the Commission against relying too heavily on the waste hierarchy as a driver for better organic waste management:

2 France Nature Environnement January /8 The prevention of the production and of the harmfulness of waste was enshrined as a priority in the French waste law of Nothing much happened in this direction for about 25 years. The 1992 waste law made it illegal to landfill any waste except ultimate waste after July However, the definition of ultimate was left to the local administration (préfets) and in fact very little changed at this date, despite arguments by NGOs that organic waste and other recyclable waste should definitely not be defined as ultimate. Questions aimed primarily at Member States: 1. What measures have been taken and/or are envisaged to encourage separate collection of bio-waste (or separate sub-streams of biowaste, e.g. food waste, green waste, food production waste, catering waste) as described in Art 22 of the new Waste Framework Directive? What are the estimated quantitative results of such measures? The Grenelle law imposes source separation by professional producers of large quantities of biowaste, from January 2012 There is no measure to encourage separate collection of household biowaste. Therefore, the great majority of household biowaste is sent, with the household residual waste, to landfill and incineration. 2. Would the setting of recycling target at the level described in the Annex to the Communication (36.5%) have any positive or adverse effects on bio-waste management in your country? Do you have any studies/experiences on that issue? A specific recycling objective would encourage separate collection of biowaste. At present in France the recycling target (45% of household and assimilated waste by 2015) covers all the waste together and therefore does not specifically encourage separate collection. It is important that mixed waste composting (MBT) be clearly excluded from the definition of organic treatment or of recycling, otherwise the recycling target would have no environmental value, and would in fact encourage the spreading of mixed waste compost. Please see reply to question 5 for a discussion of the nature of the target. 3. Would the setting of recycling targets at the abovementioned level improve or harm the implementation of the current legislation? In which way? A specific biowaste recycling target, if it concerns municipal waste, would improve the legislation in place and in particular allow biowaste to be oriented away from landfill and incineration. (However, see question 5 for more discussion of the nature of this target).

3 France Nature Environnement January /8 4. Added Value of EU legislation. Would setting a recycling/separate collection target for biowaste deliver added value in comparison with current legislative regime (including the Landfill Directive and the Waste Framework Directive, especially Art 5 and 22,) if this existing legislative regime is fully implemented? The reduction of landfilling of organic waste required by the Landfill Directive has never been specifically transposed into French law. In addition, the landfill directive states what should be done but gives no indication about which solutions to privilege for treatment of organic waste. In France much biowaste, especially kitchen waste, goes with residual household waste into MBT (mixed waste composting) units, producing a poor quality compost with many risks for the soil. This is why a specific target of source separation for biowaste would be the best means of guaranteeing separate collection of biowaste and production of high quality compost. The CNIID and FNE are therefore more favourable to separate collection targets than to recycling targets for biowaste, so as to avoid low grade recycling via MBT technologies, and to favour treatment of biowaste by anaerobic digestion and composting. The separate collection target for biowaste would be complementary to the hierarchy and would facilitate its effective application. (however please see question 5 for a discussion of the exact nature of the targets). Article 5 of the WFD does not give such a clear incentive to optimise biowaste management, and there is no direct link to recycling targets. Article 22 states that MS should encourage separate collection, but this is too 'soft' and does not provide sufficient certainties for securing investments and dedicated recycling actions in waste management plans. Article 22 actually anticipates that it will be necessary to set legal targets. 5. Areas not appropriate for separate collection. The Report of the European Parliament on bio-waste (A7-0203/2010)F2F suggests that separate collection should be mandatory with the exception of those areas where this is not the appropriate option from the environmental and economic points of view. Do you have any experiences or assessment linked to the selection of such areas? We do not have elements allowing the selection of zones for which separate collection of biowaste would not be efficient from environmental and economic points of view. We know of no studies offering precise indicators allowing the evaluation of the effectiveness and the appropriateness of separate collection of biowaste on different types of territory. However, for very rural zones with low population density, community or individual composting should be favoured over separate collection. Thus, the separate collection target should not mean compulsory separate collection in every corner of every nation. The target can be detailed on a regional or county level according to type of housing. In fact in our view it is not appropriate to set either separate collection or recycling targets for organic waste, since the most environmentally and economically efficient way of treating it is within the household, before it

4 France Nature Environnement January /8 becomes waste, thus falling into the category of waste prevention. It is quite easy to increase recycling rates for biowaste (both in kilos and in %) by setting up a collection scheme for garden waste. This mobilises large quantities of garden waste which was previously managed within the garden, and actually pushes this material down the hierarchy from prevention to recycling. It is therefore very important to bear this in mind when separate collection is being considered, and to clearly distinguish between kitchen and garden waste. Households producing garden waste have, by definition, a garden and could therefore be deemed capable of managing their organic waste domestically. (Those who do not wish to could have access to a civic amenity site or a private/self-financing scheme). However all households produce food waste, whether or not they have a garden, so this stream must be priority for separate collection. FNE and the CNIID therefore support the position of the EEB, which has already suggested that the target for organic waste recycling be in the form of a minimisation of organic waste in residual waste going to landfill, incineration or MBT. This should be expressed as the maximum organic waste content of residual waste in kg per capita per year. This will cover both prevention and recycling and ensure that the hierarchy is adhered to. 6. Differentiated targets. Do you see a possibility of setting differentiated recycling/separate collection targets for different Member States? What criteria in your opinion could be used for such differentiation? Member states should all have the same target, with a differentiated timescale for its attainment to allow those states less advanced in waste management to organise themselves, as occurred for the landfill directive. FNE and the CNIID are not in favour of taking bio-climatic factors into account for differentiating targets. 7. Bio-waste from food production. The analysis of case studies on food production waste demonstrated that this waste is usually re-used or recycled within agricultural and related industries, e.g. as animal feed. Case studies show that the quality of this waste is stable which allows its re-use or recycling in good economic and safety conditions. For these reasons, bio-waste from industrial sources was excluded from recycling targets discussed in the Annex. Could you provide evidence contradicting the above statement and demonstrating the need of setting recycling targets for biowaste from food production? The CNIID and FNE have no evidence to contradict the exclusion of food production waste from the separate collection targets. In France, the only separate collection target concerns these producers. The quality of this waste and the way it is situated on production sites allows it to be treated separately without being mixed with other waste. This is not the case today with household biowaste when there is no source separation obligation. In France there is a recycling target of 75% for industrial waste (for 2012), which includes organic waste.

5 France Nature Environnement January /8 8. Form of recycling targets. What are in your opinion the advantages and disadvantages of setting targets: a) for the recycling of bio-waste expressed as the amount of bio-waste subject to composting or anaerobic digestion and resulting with the production of quality compost/digestate; b) for the separate collection of bio-waste, leaving Member States freedom to choose further treatment of collected bio-waste? For France option a) is not acceptable since environmental organisations and farmers fear that there may be pressure to use 'dirty' compost from MBT or mixed waste composting on agricultural land, and to count it as recycling. Option b) is a possibility, but we urge the Commission to choose an indicator and target which measures and minimises the organic waste in residual household waste going to incineration, MBT or landfilling. The highest level in the hierarchy is not recycling but prevention, and a separate collection target could work against prevention, as explained in the answer to question Separate collection barriers. As separate collection should provide better waste management at comparable cost, one could expect that no additional legislative support is necessary. Based on your experience, please provide information about any barriers encountered which delay or prevent introduction of separate collection at national, regional or local level. The main barrier in France is the political posture of local authorities against the development of separate biowaste collection. This dogmatic position is based mainly on a fear of increasing costs, despite the 2008 ADEME study results which show that it is not necessarily more expensive overall. In order to introduce a new biowaste collection without increasing costs, it is often appropriate to reduce existing collection frequency. This is possible since the residual waste no longer contains the smelly biodegradable waste. The collections need to be optimised with a global vision of streams. In France, the fact that often different structures are responsible for collection and for treatment of the waste does not facilitate a holistic approach or 'joined-up thinking'. The allergy of French municipalities to separate biowaste collection is also based on a reluctance to overload their electors with too many obligations, and a conviction that people are incapable of such a complex sorting system. This is despite survey results showing that the majority of households are prepared to increase their sorting efforts. The prejudices held by the local authorities are very similar to those held before the sorting of packaging waste started in 1992; these proved quite unfounded. In France the fact that MBT (mixed-waste composting) is still an option, and that the government despite not supporting this technology has not taken a clear enough stand against it, means that it appears (falsely) as a simpler answer for those collectivities not wishing to spend time and effort on educating their inhabitants. It is also encouraged by salesmen and by

6 France Nature Environnement January /8 consultancies which receive a percentage of the costs of building the large and costly MBT plants. 10. Compost markets. With high distances between the installations treating bio-waste and soils that require compost/digestate, transportation costs are relatively high compared to the market value of compost and are one of the potential barriers in the wider dissemination of biological treatment of bio-waste. Other market-related problems signalled to the Commission include: finding outlets for produced compost/digestate, especially in more urbanized areas; concerns with respect to the quality of compost; competition with manure as a fertilizer. Can you give examples for the failure of compost markets due to the factors mentioned above, or other factors? For the compost market to be buoyant it is essential that users, particularly farmers, have every confidence in the quality of the product. The increase in organic farming and market gardening is one factor which will certainly increase the demand for high quality compost. In areas where mixed-waste compost has been used for many years farmers are discovering that their soil contains many visual contaminants, particularly plastics. Heavy metal contamination is not visible to the naked eye but does exist. In these areas it can be difficult to rebuild confidence in compost. When the compost is of high quality, it has a significant value and the transport cost no longer seems so high. At present certain kinds of compost are transported across France and even imported from Germany. The CNIID and FNE support local production and use of compost when possible to avoid unnecessary transport, but when transport is necessary the distances should not be an insurmountable barrier. There are cases where the market for compost is difficult to establish because of an excess of animal manures and slurries, such as in Brittany. This however is based on a misunderstanding, since compost is a soil improver and rarely contains enough agronomic nutriments to be classed as a fertiliser. It can actually be complementary to slurries. 11. Good and bad practices. The Communication includes examples of Member States which made strong efforts towards the successful introduction of separate collection in order to ensure high quality recycling. According to the Green Paper on bio-waste, "in all regions where separate collection has been introduced it is regarded a successful waste management option" (supported by a list of success storiesf3f). While this statement was sometimes contested, would you have examples of a failure of separate collection systems and reasons behind such failures? In France there have been a number of attempts to introduce separate collections which have asked for kitchen and garden waste in the same bin. This type of collection tends to become essentially a greenwaste collection, and kitchen waste is forgotten and goes in the dustbin. Green waste and food waste collection should be considered specifically, without one solution fits all obligation, as optimizing their collection and the resulting recycling quality may lead to different schemes.

7 France Nature Environnement January /8 Separately collecting garden waste door-to-door increases the total waste collected by the local authority since garden waste that was previously managed by garden owners is mobilised to the public collection. 12. Differences in national practices. Do you have any evidence for country-specific factors that explain why some Member States have progressed further in bio-waste recycling than others? Do you have any evidence indicating that some individual Member States will not be able to meet the diversion targets of the Landfill Directive? In France very few local authorities have set up separate collection schemes for reasons mentioned in the reply to question 9, and because of the existence of incinerators that are sometimes over-sized and therefore require plenty of waste to keep them going. MBT (modernised mixed waste composting) became fashionable a few years ago and many local authorities fell or risk falling into the trap. In France waste management is dominated by two very big companies, who probably feel happier building large MBT factories than supporting municipalities in setting up separate collection schemes. Technical questions aimed primarily at Member States: 1. Have any data on waste management in your country become available since the publication of the ARCADIS/Eunomia study, especially with respect to the following issues: (biodegradable) municipal waste generation (including the relative shares of food and garden waste), existing municipal waste treatment capacities (especially incinerators), planned municipal waste treatment capacities. According to the last national characterisation of household waste, dating from 2009, 32.2% of household waste is biowaste. The capacity of MBT (mixed waste composting) treatment is estimated by ADEME at 3 million tonnes of waste per year in One of the objections raised against uniform bio-waste recycling targets is that they would penalise countries that have in the past heavily invested in incineration capacity. What is the age structure of the municipal waste incinerators in your country? If there was a move away from incineration to municipal waste treatment, what alternative sources of waste would end up in incinerators to fill their capacity? The average age of incinerators in France is 22 years. France has set a target of reducing incineration and landfill of waste by 15% by The argument that waste incinerators need biowaste to fill them is based on a fallacy. The majority of biowaste produces no useful energy when incinerated because of its water content, and can even reduce the energy production of an incinerator. The exceptions are wood and fats/oils, both of which can be managed in dedicated streams. 3. Has your country changed its support schemes for renewable energy, especially

8 France Nature Environnement January /8 renewable energy coming from waste management, since the publication of the ARCADIS/Eunomia study (or is it planning to do so)? France reduces landfill tax (TGAP) for landfills which collect biogas and convert it to energy; this can be interpreted as financial support for landfilling. Technical questions for all stakeholders: 4. Experiences with waste treatment technologies. Are you aware of any advantages or drawback of waste treatment technologies that have not been discussed in the ARCADIS/Eunomia study? - also question 6. No, but the report is so huge that we are unable to be certain about this point. 5. Costs of separate collection. ARCADIS/Eunomia assumed that separate collection was economically neutral, supported by some evidence. Are you aware of any other costs assessments referring to separate collection of bio-waste, prepared at national, regional or local level (especially conducted during last 5 years)? A 2008 ADEME report: Analyse technico-économique des opérations de gestion biologique des déchets.