As of: 09.06.2009

• Title: Biowaste - Need for EU Legislation?

• Speaker: Parliamentary State Secretary Astrid Klug
• Occasion: Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic of Germany to the European Union
• Date/Location: 09.06.2009, Brussels

- Check against delivery -

Ms. Szech-Kondouros,
Ms. Administrator-General,
Mr. Deputy Director-General,
Ladies and gentlemen,

At this juncture, I would also like to take the opportunity to welcome you cordially to this event.

We, the Directorate-General for the Environment, the Environment Ministry of the Czech Republic, the Flemish Waste-Management Au-thority and the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), are holding this event today to provide an opportunity to discuss with you the issue "Biowaste - Need for EU Legislation?".

All of this event's hosts share a central insight: biowaste is a great deal more than simply waste. Biowaste is a valuable resource, one that we must use. It may admittedly be true that the event's hosts have their differences regarding the specific approaches to be taken and the political options available. However, at the same time we agree that we urgently need an international dialogue about this issue from the point of view of the waste-management sector and for climate protection reasons.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the greatest challenge facing us in the coming decades will be that of conducting our economic development with a reduced use of natural resources, in the interest of leaving future generations an intact planet with adequate resources. Careful, efficient and innovative use of energy, materials and resources will become the key issue for a globalised economy. Europe's economic systems depend on natural resources such as minerals, biomass, air, water and soil. The manner and the speed with which we are squandering our renewable and non-renewable resources are increasingly undermining our planet's ability to regenerate the resources and the environmental functions upon which our growth and prosperity are founded. Over the past 50 years, we have modified ecosystems more rapidly, and more profoundly, than we have done in any other comparable period of human history.

It is eminently clear that we will have to use our resources more efficiently. And addressing that need will include intensifying our efforts to reuse and recycle raw materials after they have been used. In keeping with the principles of a closed-cycle economy, the waste-management sector will play a growing role in our efforts to meet the challenge of sustainable resources management.

In addition, we must also intensify our efforts to raise environmental awareness, and enhance pertinent legal requirements and technical standards, throughout Europe and the world: the handful of countries with modern waste-management sectors, oriented to resources conservation and climate protection, is but a small minority in comparison to the many countries which still have a lot of catching-up to do in their waste-management sectors.

That said, it is important to note that Europe's waste-management sector is Europe's fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after the sectors of energy, industrial processes and agriculture. The sector's main sources of emissions continue to be its landfills, which generate methane via biological decomposition processes. Considering a 100-year time frame, the greenhouse gas methane is 21 times more harmful to the climate than the same amount of carbon dioxide. Untreated organic waste is the main emission source for climate-harmful methane gases in landfills.

At the same time, waste contains many raw materials needed for sustainable economic management. From waste streams, we can harvest valuable secondary raw materials for new products. The waste streams can thus function as raw-materials "warehouses" for Europe. Today's mountains of waste are the "mines of the future"! What is more, recycling also makes sense from the climate and energy perspectives, since recycling reduces processing and transport requirements - thereby reducing required energy inputs. And along with such indirect benefits in the areas of climate and energy effects, the waste-management sector also contributes directly to the generation of energy by providing fuels and fuel substitutes.

Biowaste has meanwhile become an important mass stream within the waste-management sector and as such it has long since become an integral part of resources and raw-materials policies - and, thus, has long been closely linked to climate-protection and energy policies. We must further intensify our efforts to optimise our management of such waste to accomodate both climate-protection and resources-conservation criteria.

The important role that biowaste plays in environmental policy is reflected in the amended Waste Framework Directive, which includes a seperate article devoted to biowaste. The Directive calls on Member States to promote separate collection and environmentally compatible treatment and recycling of biowaste.

In drafting relevant legislative provisions, the European Commission is called on to undertake an environmental policy assessment of biowaste treatment, and to establish requirements for treatment of biowaste and quality standards for compost and fermentation residues.

The political framework needed for regulating biowaste beyond the Waste Framework Directive has been set in Europe with a Thematic Strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources, a Thematic Strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste and with clearly defined climate-protection goals.

The objective of a sustainable use of natural resources is to enhance materials and energy efficiency while simultaneously reducing the negative impacts of resources use. The recycling strategy is expected to pave the way to a European "recycling society" and to create a legal climate that promotes recycling activities.

In spring 2007 important steps were taken to define Europe's climate and energy policy. The EU's heads of state and government agreed to cut the EU's greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 % by the year 2020, compared to their 1990 levels, and by 30 % within the framework of an ambitious and comprehensive global agreement in Copenhagen. The trend in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions within the EU is already pointing in the right direction: the EU Commission recently announced that Europe's greenhouse-gas emissions have decreased for the third year in a row.

If we are to reach our climate goals, we will have to increase our use of renewable energies enormously. And yet the Commission's recently published progress report on renewable energies shows that Europe will have to considerably step up its efforts if it is to reach its professed renewable-energy goals for 2020. This is an appeal to all Member States!

And management of biowaste can contribute significantly to such efforts.

EU Commissioner for Environment Stavros Dimas is thus right on target in calling for the EU to develop into a resources-conserving "recycling society", and in noting the major role that biowaste management can play in such development. When our resources become waste, we have to find ways of reusing and recycling them. We can use the energy which can be recovered from biowaste in our fight against climate change, and high-quality compost helps to enhance the vitality of our soils and to boost biodiversity. To those ends, we must bring all stakeholders together so that we can all join in finding and using the best-possible waste-management options.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am convinced that in the coming years Europe's waste-management sector is going to accelerate its development toward a resources-conserving closed-cycle economy. A separate Biowaste Directive would complement the requirements of the Landfill Directive and support clarification and harmonisation of Community legislation:

• With a share of 30-40%, biowaste accounts for the largest proportion by weight of domestic waste in Europe. We are speaking of well above 100 million tonnes here! This resource, which is important for soil improvement, often remains unused and is dumped in landfills together with the remaining domestic waste. An EU-wide regulation is justified not only due to the large amount of biowaste but also due to the reduced strain on the environment to be expected from treating the waste.
• Our environmental policy target is to guarantee and develop environmentally sound recycling and re-use of biowaste. Quality standards for the production of compost are needed – to ensure soil protection and to maintain and improve soil quality and soil functions. The whole issue is highly complex and best dealt with in a separate Directive.

It is obvious that the cause of climate protection can only benefit from further expanding the separate collection of biowaste. After all, most of Europe's biowaste is still being landfilled without undergoing any treatment whatsoever, thus leading to the generation of climate-harmful greenhouse gases.

However, energy should not be the sole criterion applied in defining pertinent environmental requirements. The challenges of protecting the climate and of providing a reliable energy supply, as urgent as they are, should not blind us to other environmental aspects. In using biowaste, we must also play close attention to such factors as soil quality, fertilisation, and binding of CO2 in soil humus. From the climate protection and soil conservation perspective such positive impacts of biowaste, in connection with substance recycling, are at least as important as the energy that can be recovered from biowaste.

Now, I am looking forward to a stimulating discussion with you – and to your proposals regarding the best ways of using biowaste, a valuable resource, throughout all of Europe. Deputy Director-General Delbeke, we would be delighted if you could accommodate some of this group's proposals and suggestions into the future work on the biowaste dossier. Thank you for your kind attention.