On June 14th , the Belgian Presidency/the Public Waste Agency of Flanders (OVAM) organized a two-day high-level workshop to discuss major challenges and potential solutions related to the current Wate Framework Directive (WFD).
Topics included the end-of-waste status, the waste hierarchy, prevention, and the role of incineration in a circular economy, separate collection of biowaste, among others. The workshop comes in due time before a potential evaluation of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) by 2026 and it was seen as a starting point on what should be reflected in a “future-proof WFD” in the second half of the year.
The breakout session on ’biowaste – learning on experiences’ focussed on best practices to implement separate collection and to manage biowaste. Francesc Giró i Fontanals from the Waste Agency of Catalonia presented the successful model to increase taxes for landfilling and incineration of residual waste and investing in biowaste separate collection and management in Catalonia. Mike Stinavage and Gemma Nohales from ENT, as Project leader of the LIFE BIOBEST project, presented the policy brief including the regulatory barriers for bio-waste separate collection and treatment.
Key message on biowaste for EU Commission
4.4 BIOWASTE COLLECTION
Work is needed to close the gaps in the regulatory framework. Best practices should be translated into or promoted in EU legislation. Furthermore, besides the existing obligation for biowaste collection, to enable proper biowaste management, policy measures need to include biowaste targets for separate collection, for the quality of biowaste collected and for the quantity of biowaste in residual waste.
As an outcome of the two-day workshop key messages were given to the EU Commission, which can be accessed in detail in the summary report ‘A Futureproof Waste Framework Directive’.
All presentations and the summary report are available on the OVAM website here.