The purpose of the Commission Notice is to give technical guidance on certain aspects of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) and the List of Waste (‘LoW’), as revised in 2014 and 2017.
Classifying waste was identified by members of IMPEL as one the main challenges in the the implementation of EU environmental law according to a recent IMPEL study.
The guide aims to provide clarifications and guidance to national authorities, including local authorities, and businesses (e.g. for permitting issues) on the correct interpretation and application of the relevant EU legislation regarding the classification of waste, namely identification of hazardous properties, assessing if the waste has a hazardous property and, ultimately, classifying the waste as hazardous or non-hazardous.The Notice has been adopted following discussions and consultations with Member States and stakeholders.
The Notice is structured in three chapters and four annexes:
- Chapter 1 provides an overall background to waste classification and instructions on how to read the guidance.
- In Chapter 2, the relevant parts of EU waste legislation are briefly presented and their relevance for the definition and classification of (hazardous) waste is given.
- Chapter 3 presents the general steps of waste classification highlighting the basic concepts but without entering into detailed discussions.
- For detailed information reference is made to the respective annexes, where the specific aspects are described extensively:
- Annex 1 provides information on the List of Waste and on the selection of appropriate List of Waste entries.
- Annex 2 presents the different sources of information on hazardous substances and their classification.
- Annex 3 describes the principles for the assessment of the individual hazardous properties HP1 to HP 15.
- Annex 4 reviews basic concepts and refers to the available standards and methods regarding waste sampling and chemical analyses of waste.
The technical guidance may be updated as necessary in light of the experience with the implementation of the EU relevant legislation.
Access the guidance document here.
