Statistics on import and export of waste

Transcription

1 EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate E: Sectoral and regional statistics Unit E-3: Environmental statistics and accounts Doc. WASTE/WG/3.3/2010 Original in EN Statistics on import and export of waste Follow up of DIMESA and ESSC meetings / options on the way forward Eurostat Unit E3 Environment Statistics "Tour de Table" To get a picture of the opinions in Member States regarding statistics on import and export of waste Eurostat will ask Delegates to express their opinion on the possible way forward. Meeting of the Working Group "Statistics of the Environment" Sub-Group "Waste" Joint Eurostat/EFTA group Meeting of 2 and 3 March 2010 BECH Building Room Ampère

2 Statistics on import and export of waste Follow-up and discussion on the way forward Introduction The proposal for a Commission Regulation on statistics on import and export of waste has been submitted to the meetings of the ESSC and the DIMESA, however the problems that some countries have with this proposal could not be sorted out. Therefore, a voting on the proposal did not take place in the ESSC. This document aims to summarise the actual situation regarding the proposal on statistics on import and export of waste and to outline options for an open discussion on the way forward. Background and history of the proposal Member States and EFTA Countries have produced detailed statistics on the generation and treatment of waste for 2 reference years (2004 and 2006) after the Regulation came into force on 29 December Statistics on the import and export of waste have not been produced so far. According to Article 5 the possible methodology for obtaining regular statistics should be investigated through a pilot study programme: 5(1) The Commission shall draw up a programme for pilot studies on the import and export of waste to be carried out by Member States. The pilot studies shall aim at developing a methodology to obtain regular data which shall be governed by the principles of Community statistics, as laid down in Article 10 of Regulation (EC) No 322/97 (Repealed by Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of 11 March 2009 on European Statistics) Article 5(2) requests that the pilot study programme shall take account of existing legislation on import and export of waste: 5(2) The Commission programme for pilot studies shall be consistent with the contents of Annexes I and II, particularly the aspects related to the scope and coverage of wastes, waste categories for the classification of waste, reference years and periodicity, taking into account the reporting obligations under Regulation (EEC) No 259/93. (Waste Shipment Regulation, repealed by Regulation (EC) No 1013/2006 of 14 June). Article 5(4) requests the Commission to establish the necessary implementation measures, to be based on the results of the pilot studies on import and export of waste, including shipments of waste among EU Member States: 5(4) On the basis of the conclusions of the pilot studies, the Commission shall inform the European Parliament and the Council of the possibilities of compiling statistics for the activities and characteristics covered by the pilot studies for import and export of waste. The Commission shall adopt the necessary implementation measures in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 7(2). 1

3 The results of these studies carried out by the Member States were presented in a report from the Commission to the European Parliament and to the Council 1. They confirmed the need for these statistics for the purposes of monitoring Community waste policy. The current provisions of the Waste Statistics Regulation do not describe the requirements for statistics on import and export of waste in sufficient detail. The Commission therefore proposed specifications for statistics on import and export of waste by way of a formal amendment of Annex I of Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 on waste statistics. A first version of the proposal was submitted to the 69 th SPC meeting of 12 February 2009 for information. A number of Member States expressed concerns with regard to the growing response burden as well as to the reference to foreign trade statistics. The SPC called for further discussions at expert level. Therefore, the proposal was presented and discussed at the meeting of the Intrastat/Extrastat Committee on 4-5 March A number of countries expressed their concerns regarding the quality and incompleteness of data, which are collected via the Extrastat and Intrastat system, however, it was noted as well that for certain waste categories foreign trade statistics might be a good source of information. At the Directors meeting on environmental statistics and accounts (DIMESA) on June 2009 the opinion of the Intrastat/Extrastat Committee and its impact on the proposal was taken into account. The participants of DIMESA agreed to submit a revised proposal for statistics on imports and exports of waste to the ESSC for its meeting on 19 November. The following adaptations were requested: - The reference to foreign trade statistics should be removed from the proposal. - The date of implementation should be postponed to the reference year 2010, with the first delivery of data to Eurostat in June Revised proposal for regular statistics on import and export of waste The extent of the new statistical requirements is limited: - Only statistics on the amounts of non-hazardous waste which is imported and exported for recovery/recycling will have to be reported. - Only shipments of waste which do not have to be notified under the Waste Shipment Regulation, of so-called 'green-listed waste', are concerned by this proposal. - Information on imports and exports of hazardous waste and other waste for which shipments fall under the common, compulsory notification system will be based on reporting under the Waste Shipment Regulation. 1 Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council - Second report on the results of the pilot studies referred to in Article 4(3) and Article 5(1) of Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2002 on waste statistics, COM(2008) 501 of

4 In practice, four columns to introduce the amounts of waste imported and exported will be added to the current waste generation matrix in the reporting questionnaire for the data collection on waste statistics: Table 1: Integration of imports and export into the reporting format Waste type Total 1 _..._ 15 Metals 17 Glass 19 Paper 21 Plastics _..._ Current reporting matrix NACE 1 2 _..._ Total waste generated New reporting requirements Of which: Imports of waste exported waste Intra- Extra- Intra- Extra- EU EU EU EU Haz. XXX XXX XXX XXX Non haz. A breakdown into NACE activities and into waste treatment operations will not be required. It is expected that data for a maximum of 20 waste categories will have to be reported, depending on the situation in the Member States. Some countries confirmed that for many of these waste categories foreign trade statistics would be a good data source, other countries prefer different approaches to generate the data, e.g. to analyse the general reporting requirements for 'green-listed' waste. Situation after the ESSC meeting of 19 November 2009 On 19 November, at the ESSC meeting it was decided to postpone the voting on the proposal of the Commission to a later stage. After the DIMESA meeting of 23 November bilateral contacts with Member States took place and revealed additional difficulties with the implementation of the proposal on the inclusion of import and export of waste into the Waste Statistics Regulation. In the Note from the Director of the Directorate E to the DIMESA (ESTAT/EO/PDM/cm D(2009)432916) from 18 December 2009 a discussion on the way forward in the Working Group meeting of 2-3 March was announced. 3

5 Policy demand and current situation Regular statistics on waste are important to monitor the implementation of EU waste policy. Compliance with the principles of maximisation of recovery and safe disposal implies that at EU level the knowledge on the link between the amounts of waste generated and the amounts of waste recovered and disposed of has to be enhanced. The current structure of Regulation (EC) No 2150/2002 does not allow following waste streams from the generating process to the recovery and disposal operation, inter alia because of physical and chemical changes through waste treatment processes and because of trade of waste within the Community and with third countries. Member States that do not have recycling/recovery capacity for a certain type of waste will not be able to monitor achievements on recycling/recovery of this waste generated in their country, unless it is known how much of this waste is exported. Member States that import large quantities of certain types of waste would no longer be able to monitor progress of management of the waste generated in their own country, unless they know how much waste is imported. Member States already generate data on the transboundary movements of waste in the frame of the compulsory notification system of the Waste Shipment Regulation: - For all waste destined for final disposal within the Community. - For hazardous wastes destined for recovery and which are listed in Annex IV and Annex IVA of the Waste Shipment Regulation. (Shipments from/to third countries are prohibited except those from countries to which the OECD Decision C(2001)107 2 applies, countries which are parties to the Basel Convention or countries with which the Community has concluded bilateral agreements.) For non-hazardous, so called 'green-listed' waste destined for recovery, listed in Annexes III, IIIA and IIIB of the Waste Shipment Regulation, general information requirements apply, however, Member States are not requested to forward this information to the Basel Secretariat and/or to the European Commission. This proposal for the production of statistics on import and export of waste aims to close the knowledge gap on the fate of non-hazardous waste to allow a better monitoring of the waste generated, disposed of and recycled/recovered. Current situation, an illustration: Paper waste The monitoring of the exported and imported amounts of non-hazardous waste is at the time being only possible for some waste types. An illustration for paper waste is presented below: In the EU-27 approx 47 million tonnes are collected in 2006 according to the Waste Statistics Regulation (WStatR) 3 data. Most of the paper waste is recycled within EU-27, but since 2000 the extra EU-27 export is gaining momentum. 2 OECD Decision of the Council C(2001)107/Final on the 'Control of transboundary movements of wastes destined for recovery operations, as amended by C(2004)20 3 Data for EU-27 and 2004 are confidential, so no trend could be derived. 4

6 The steady increase in EU-27 extra exports is highlighted in the next graph. The data is collected from Eurostat s foreign trade statistics database (Comext) for six types of paper waste 4. The graph below presents the monthly EU-27-extra import and export flows. ( : Annual averages of imports and exports per month are shown, : Monthly fluctuations around the yearly average for imports and exports are shown) EU-27 extra import and export flows for paper waste 1,4 1,2 monthly flows (Mil. tonnes) 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 import: yearly import:monthly export: yearly export:monthly 0,2 0,0 Jan. 00 Jan. 02 Jan. 04 Jan. 06 Jan. 08 Jan. 10 years Imports of paper waste: The yearly imports from outside the EU-27 exhibit a slow, but steady increase, from 0.8 million tonnes (67000 tonnes per month) in 2000 to 1.13 million tonnes (94200 tonnes per month) in Exports of paper waste: In contrast to imports, the increase in extra EU-27 exports has been very strong. Starting from an export volume of 3.4 million tonnes (0.28 million tonnes per month) in 2000 the exported volume has reached 11.6 million tonnes (0.97 million tonnes per month) in This figure reflects an increase of approximately 341 %. More important, the difference between imports and exports gives a net-growth of exports from 2.6 million tonnes in 2000 to 10.5 million tonnes in 2008, a rate of 400 %. Taking into account the total collected paper waste (WStatR 2006) of 47 million tonnes, more than 20 % of the collected paper waste is exported. The driver behind is the export flow to China. The export to China increased from 0.37 million tonnes in 2000 to 7.9 million tonnes in Chinas export share of the total extra EU-27 exports has grown from 11 % to 68 % during this period. The analyses on the flows of paper waste were derived from existing foreign trade statistics. It is assumed that for other waste streams the situation might be similar, with the effect that the unknown exported and imported amounts for recycling and recovery do not allow for monitoring the 'own' recycling achievements. 4 For more information please see the price indicator paper or Eurostat EDC waste web-site. 5

7 Options for the way forward The observed difficulties with the Commission proposal focused on the lack of appropriate data sources and methods for data collection, and on the unclear scope of the reporting requirement. In the light of the difficulties the possible options focus on simplification of the reporting scope and on methodological aspects. - Simplification There are three options for a simplified and more concrete coverage for waste statistics on import and export: i. Restrict the number of waste categories on which statistics should be produced. Instead of a potential of maximum 20 the number of waste categories could be specified and limited to a maximum of 10. ii. The reporting could be limited to exports only, intra and extra EU-27. iii. The reporting could be limited to exports leaving the EU-27 territory. - Methods of data collection A synopsis of possible approaches for data collection could be carried out. The Commission has already carried out a pilot study programme aiming to develop a methodology to obtain regular data (Art. 5 of WStatR); however, Member States expressed that, e.g. due to major changes in foreign trade statistics, the results are not valid any more. Workshops or new pilot studies could be carried out focusing on the development of alternative methods for data collection. "Tour de Table" at the Working Group on Waste Statistics on 2-3 March 2010 To get a picture of the opinions in Member States regarding statistics on import and export of waste Eurostat will ask Delegates to express their opinion on the possible way forward. Eurostat is asking for an opinion on the following questions: Is your country in a position to accept the legal proposal presented by the Commission? If yes: - How do you plan to implement statistics on import and export of waste? If no: - What are your main problems? - Would the proposed measures for simplification help you to implement? - Would a workshop and/or new methodological pilot studies help you to implement? - How could Eurostat further prepare for / assist in the implementation? 6