EU member states and lawmakers have reviewed bloc’s rules on transporting waste and halting exports of certain types of waste to third countries that cannot properly treat it, Reuters reports.
“Exports of certain non-hazardous wastes and mixtures of non-hazardous wastes (…) will be allowed only to those non-OECD countries that consent and fulfil the criteria to treat such waste in an environmentally sound manner.”
The Parliament added that respect for international workers’ rights would also be taken into account. The European Commission proposed in 2021 to overhaul EU rules on waste disposal to make it harder for member states to offload rubbish to more impoverished countries.
The EU will finally assume responsibility for its plastic waste by banning its export to non-OECD countries.
EU countries must stop sending plastic waste to poorer countries within two and a half years after legislation comes into force, parliament has said, adding that rules on exporting plastic waste to countries belonging to the OECD, a group of the world’s major rich nations, will also be tightened.
In previous years, about half of the EU’s waste exports were sent to non-OECD countries where waste management rules were weaker than in the EU, effectively taking pollution from the EU abroad.
