Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Approximation of laws ° Waste ° Transfrontier shipment of hazardous waste ° Directive 84/631 ° Absolute prohibition by a Member State of tipping on its territory of waste originating in another Member State ° Not permissible ° Obligation to use the notification procedure laid down by the directive

(Council Directive 84/631)

2. Free movement of goods ° Quantitative restrictions ° Measures having equivalent effect ° Article 30 of the Treaty ° Scope ° Recyclable and non-recyclable waste ° Included ° Prohibition by a Member State of tipping on its territory of waste originating in another Member State ° Justification ° Protection of the environment

(EEC Treaty, Arts 30 and 130r (2))

Summary

1. A Member State fails to fulfil its obligations under Directive 84/631 on the supervision and control within the European Community of the transfrontier shipment of hazardous waste if it imposes an absolute prohibition on the storage, tipping or dumping in one of its regions of hazardous waste originating in another Member State and thereby precludes the application of the procedure laid down in that directive.

Directive 84/631 introduced a comprehensive system which relates inter alia to transfrontier shipments of hazardous waste with a view to its disposal in defined establishments and is based on the obligation on the part of the holder of the waste to give prior notification in detail, the relevant national authorities having the right to raise objections and hence to prohibit a particular shipment of hazardous waste in order to deal with problems relating to environmental and health protection as well as to public safety and public policy, but not the possibility of prohibiting such shipments generally.

2. Objects which are shipped across a frontier for the purposes of commercial transactions fall within the scope of Article 30 of the Treaty, whatever the nature of those transactions, with the result that waste, whether recyclable or not, is to be regarded as goods, the movement of which, in accordance with that article, must in principle not be prevented.

However, without prejudice to the provisions of Directive 84/631 on transfrontier shipments of hazardous waste, a prohibition imposed by a Member State on the storage, tipping or dumping in one of its regions of waste originating in another Member State is capable of being justified by imperative requirements of environmental protection. Firstly, waste is matter of a special kind whose accumulation, even before it becomes a health hazard, constitutes a danger to the environment, regard being had in particular to the limited capacity of each region or locality for waste reception, and secondly, such a prohibition cannot be regarded as discriminatory, in view of the principle that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source, a principle laid down by Article 130r(2) of the Treaty as a basis for action by the Community relating to the environment, which 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 in order to limit as far as possible the transport of waste.