Support to Member States in improving hazardous waste management based on assessment of Member States' performance : final report

In 2012, the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU-MS) produced altogether more than 2.5 billion tonnes of waste whereof 99 million tonnes were hazardous. Although this represents only a minor share of the total waste production in the EU, hazardous waste (HW) is a priority waste stream as its properties may cause severe negative impacts on human health and the environment in case it is improperly managed. Directive 2008/98/EC on waste (Waste Framework Directive or WFD) repealed and incorporated, inter alia, the previous Directive on Hazardous Waste (Directive 91/689/EEC), as part of the effort to simplify and streamline European waste legislation. The WFD sets specific provisions on hazardous waste management that have to be implemented into national legislation and need to be enforced in practice. The objective of this study was to assess the national HW management practices in the 28 EU Member States in order to evaluate their performance with the final aim of making recommendations for improvement.