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If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? Commission efforts to manage the definitions of waste, recycling and recovery, and to switch from a waste streams to a materials approach

Geert van Calster

elni Review 2006, pp. 18-22. https://doi.org/10.46850/elni.2006.004

Discussion on the EU definitions of ‘waste’, as well as ‘recovery’ and ‘disposal’ of waste have been, to paraphrase a standing expression, plentiful and hard on each other’s heels. Ever since the 1991 amendments to the 1975 framework directive, attempts have been made to disprove the usefulness of the definition of waste, and to question the lack of proper definition of the concepts of recovery and disposal. In order to assess the recently issued Commission Proposal for a (renewed) directive on waste, this contribution reviews first of all, succinctly, the nature and limitations of the ‘old’ (existing) definitions, subsequently it reviews the proposed changes.

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References

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