Rules applicable to certain types of waste management operations
A) Waste incineration - Incineration and co-incineration
In addition to the above general rules applicable to waste and hazardous waste at large, there are specific provisions for certain activities, whether in consideration of the type of waste management operation in question (§1), of the fact that it involves transboundary shipments (§2), or the main economic operations they relate to (§3).
§1.Rules applicable to certain types of waste management operations
Regulations specific to certain types of waste management operations, namely, on the one hand, incineration (A) and on the other hand, disposal in landfill (B) reveal the preference of European law for the former over the latter.
A) Waste incineration
The rules pertaining to waste incineration are now included in Directive 2010/75/EU on industrial emissions (the “IED Directive”). The legal regime and rules applicable to the concerned installations will be discussed after its scope has been described.
Incineration and co-incineration
The IED Directive defines a waste incineration plant as “any stationary or mobile technical unit and equipment dedicated to the thermal treatment of waste without recovery of the combustion heat generated (...)” (Article 3(40)). It is to be distinguished from a waste co-incineration plant “whose main purpose is the generation of energy or production of material products and which uses waste as a regular or additional fuel or in which waste is thermally treated for the purpose of disposal (...)” (Article 3(41)).
A power-plant which uses for the most part gases obtained in its production activities as additional fuel in substitution for fossil fuel is to be regarded as a “co-incineration plant” (Case C-209/09 Lahti Energia Oy).
The rules specific to incineration and co-incineration plants do not apply to those handling certain types of waste, inter alia, vegetable waste from agriculture and forestry or from the food processing industry, radioactive waste, animal carcasses, or waste resulting from oil and gas exploration and exploitation from off-shore installations and incinerated on board the installations (Article 42(2)).