Types of obligations, waste management operations, waste management responsibilities
The organisation of waste management by public authorities
Member States must ensure that an integrated and adequate network of waste management installations be established; these installations must be controlled by the competent authorities. In addition, they must adopt waste management plans and waste prevention programmes.
The waste treatment network
Waste disposal installations and installations for the recovery of mixed municipal waste collected from private households must form an “integrated and adequate” network, individually within each Member State or “in cooperation with other Member States where this is necessary or advisable” (Article 16 (1)). According to the Court of Justice, the lack of such a network over a long period of time per se necessarily results in a significant harm to the environment, which amounts to an infringement of the Directive (Case C-286/08 Commission of the European Communities v Hellenic Republic). For instance, Italy could not validly argue that the dumping of waste by inhabitants in the streets of Naples was independent from its control or that it could be attributable to certain events amounting to force majeure, be it the opposition of the local inhabitants to the establishment of landfill in their municipalities, criminal activity in the region or the failure by public contractors to meet their contractual obligations to construct certain essential installations in the region (Case C-297/08 European Commission v Italian Republic).
Such a network must be designed in order to enable the Union in itself as a whole to become self-sufficient in waste disposal as well as in the recovery of waste and to enable each Member State to move towards that aim individually (Article 16 (2)), in the spirit of the principles of proximity and self-sufficiency derived from international law.
The principle that environmental damage should, as a matter of priority, be remedied at source entails that it is for each region, municipality or other local authority to take appropriate steps to ensure that its own waste is collected, treated and disposed of. For the same reasons, waste must be disposed of as close as possible to the place where it is produced in order to limit as far as possible the transportation of waste (Case C-297/08 European Commission v Italian Republic).
However, the principles of proximity, priority for recovery and self-sufficiency may allow local authorities to, under the appropriate circumstances, require the undertaking responsible for the collection of waste on its territory to transport mixed municipal waste collected from private households and, as applicable, from other producers to the nearest appropriate treatment facility established in the same Member State as that authority (Case C-292/12 Ragn-Sells AS v. Sillamäe Linnavalitsus).
In structuring their networks of waste installations, Member States enjoy a margin of discretion to take into account geographical circumstances or the need for specialised installations for certain types of waste (Article 16 (2)). At the same time, they are not required to possess “the full-range of final recovery facilities” (Article 16 (4)). However, they must adjust their actions on the basis of the most appropriate methods and technologies so that their networks of installations allow the elimination or recovery of waste “in one of the nearest appropriate installations” in order to ensure a high level of protection for the environment and public health (Article 16 (2)).
Installations that carry out waste treatment must seek prior authorisation from the competent authorities, which authorisation shall have a limited duration, except for establishments or undertakings disposing of their own non-hazardous waste at the place of production or for the recovery of waste which must be registered and which must comply with general rules applicable to each type of activity and of waste (Articles 23-26).