Background / Objectives

The amount of waste is increasing year by year within the Member States of the European Union. Each year 1.3 billion tonnes of waste are produced by the citizen of the European Union, of which 40 millions are classified as hazardous waste.

The environmental policy of the European Commission intends to set standards for the handling, transport, treatment and disposal of waste in order to reduce the negative effects to human health and to the environment.

Whenever possible waste shall be treated, recycled, reused, recovered or disposed close to the location where it emerges. However treatment and disposal facilities are often not available within the same country and waste is transported over long distances to other available or more suitable facilities.

Directive 2006/12/EC on waste (Article 5 - Principles)

The European Legislation related to the control of transboundary movements of waste, especially the new Regulation (EC) No 1013/2006 on shipments of waste, contains a number of measures to prevent illegal shipment of waste, including the obligations for Member States to carry out inspections and spot checks as well as to cooperate in this respect with other MS. The new Regulation replaced the Council Regulation (EEC) No 259/93 and has to be applied since July 2007.

In this context one of the highest priority of the European waste management policy is the prevention of illegal waste transports and to support cooperation and information transfer.

Within the events national and regional experts are given the possibility to receive information and exchange experiences and to identify possibilities for further improvements within their countries.

Events

The workshop aims at information and knowledge exchange and elaboration of solutions of competent authorities and all experts involved in the waste management. Each event shall deal with the current status notification and control procedures and stimulate cooperation initiatives and joint action by the authorities concerned. Particularly the objectives of the awareness-raising events are the following:

• Analyse the current state of implementation and enforcement of the new Regulation (EC) 1013/2006;

• Explore and discuss current problems with the new Regulation as well as difficulties in control and obstacles to the cooperation between the relevant authorities;

• Exchange knowledge and provide examples of best practice concerning the enforcement and cooperation;

• Discuss possible solutions for improved cooperation within each Member State as well as between Member States, and possibilities for joint inspections and other joint actions involving two or several Member States