Waste shipment breaches still common

EU – More than 20% of waste shipments inspected over a 30-month period failed to comply with European waste shipment rules, according to Europe’s umbrella organisation for inspection authorities, IMPEL TFS. Violations varied from administrative infringements to illegal shipments of electronic waste and end-of-life vehicles.

The Enforcement Actions II project was carried out between October 2008 and March 2011 to promote and improve inspections relating to transfrontier shipments of waste. During the course of this initiative, 28 countries reported on 26 705 random or targeted inspections on the roads, in seaports or on the railways; of these, 3897 concerned transfrontier shipments of waste. Inspectors discovered that 21% of these shipments fell foul of the European Waste Shipment Regulation.
Approximately one third of the cases entailed a breach of export bans or missing notification documents. This type of offence mainly involved waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and end-of-life vehicles destined for Africa or (contaminated) plastics and paper waste heading for Asia. The other violations found by inspectors entailed contradictions with documentation and related national rules.
The most transfrontier waste shipment breaches involved paper, closely followed by metals, then plastics and WEEE.
Some 120 company inspections performed for verification purposes managed to uncover irregularities in around 50% of cases. As well as these co-ordinated transport inspections, several countries reported over 200 illegal shipments in addition to those noted above as a result of regular customs and police work leading to consultation of environmental authorities.
Transfrontier shipments of waste are regulated by a number of international agreements in order to prevent shipments of harmful waste to countries that do not have the technology for environmentally sound disposal or recovery. The European Waste Shipment Regulation obliges member states to carry out inspections and to exchange information about illegal shipments.
The Enforcement Actions II project is said to illustrate significant progress in a number of areas, including: active participation from most countries in Europe; the number of inspections carried out; the number of successful exchange programmes and good practice that has been disseminated; and the increased co-operation and participation of customs and police services with environmental authorities. However, the high rate of violations and the fact that not all EU member states participated or exchanged information are said to indicate that considerable effort is still required to move towards a level playing field and to close illegal ‘escape routes’ – such as by port-hopping – from the EU.