Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives (Text with EEA relevance)

• Published date: 22 November 2008
• Official Gazette Publication: Gazzetta ufficiale dell’Unione europea, L 312, 22 novembre 2008,Diario Oficial de la Unión Europea, L 312, 22 de noviembre de 2008,Journal officiel de l’Union européenne, L 312, 22 novembre 2008

02008L0098 — EN — 05.07.2018 — 003.002

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►B DIRECTIVE 2008/98/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 312 22.11.2008, p. 3)

Amended by:

		Official Journal
		No	page	date
►M1	COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 1357/2014 of 18 December 2014	L 365	89	19.12.2014
►M2	COMMISSION DIRECTIVE (EU) 2015/1127 Text with EEA relevance of 10 July 2015	L 184	13	11.7.2015
►M3	COUNCIL REGULATION (EU) 2017/997 of 8 June 2017	L 150	1	14.6.2017
►M4	DIRECTIVE (EU) 2018/851 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL Text with EEA relevance of 30 May 2018	L 150	109	14.6.2018

Corrected by:

►C1	Corrigendum, OJ L 297, 13.11.2015, p. 9 (2015/1127)
►C2	Corrigendum, OJ L 042, 18.2.2017, p. 43 (1357/2014)

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DIRECTIVE 2008/98/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

of 19 November 2008

on waste and repealing certain Directives

(Text with EEA relevance)

CHAPTER I

SUBJECT MATTER, SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS

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Article 1

Subject matter and scope

This Directive lays down measures to protect the environment and human health by preventing or reducing the generation of waste, the adverse impacts of the generation and management of waste and by reducing overall impacts of resource use and improving the efficiency of such use, which are crucial for the transition to a circular economy and for guaranteeing the Union’s long-term competitiveness.

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Article 2

Exclusions from the scope

1. The following shall be excluded from the scope of this Directive:

(a)gaseous effluents emitted into the atmosphere;

(b)land (in situ) including unexcavated contaminated soil and buildings permanently connected with land;

(c)uncontaminated soil and other naturally occurring material excavated in the course of construction activities where it is certain that the material will be used for the purposes of construction in its natural state on the site from which it was excavated;

(d)radioactive waste;

(e)decommissioned explosives;

(f)faecal matter, if not covered by paragraph 2(b), straw and other natural non-hazardous agricultural or forestry material used in farming, forestry or for the production of energy from such biomass through processes or methods which do not harm the environment or endanger human health.

2. The following shall be excluded from the scope of this Directive to the extent that they are covered by other Community legislation:

(a)waste waters;

(b)animal by-products including processed products covered by Regulation (EC) No 1774/2002, except those which are destined for incineration, landfilling or use in a biogas or composting plant;

(c)carcasses of animals that have died other than by being slaughtered, including animals killed to eradicate epizootic diseases, and that are disposed of in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1774/2002;

(d)waste resulting from prospecting, extraction, treatment and storage of mineral resources and the working of quarries covered by Directive 2006/21/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the management of waste from extractive industries (1);

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(e)substances that are destined for use as feed materials as defined in point (g) of Article 3(2) of Regulation (EC) No 767/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) and that do not consist of or contain animal by-products.

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3. Without prejudice to obligations under other relevant Community legislation, sediments relocated inside surface waters for the purpose of managing waters and waterways or of preventing floods or mitigating the effects of floods and droughts or land reclamation shall be excluded from the scope of this Directive if it is proved that the sediments are non-hazardous.

4. Specific rules for particular instances, or supplementing those of this Directive, on the management of particular categories of waste, may be laid down by means of individual Directives.

Article 3

Definitions

For the purposes of this Directive, the following definitions shall apply:

1.‘waste’ means any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard;

2.‘hazardous waste’ means waste which displays one or more of the hazardous properties listed in Annex III;

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2a.‘non-hazardous waste’ means waste which is not covered by point 2;

2b.‘municipal waste’ means:

(a)mixed waste and separately collected waste from households, including paper and cardboard, glass, metals, plastics, bio-waste, wood, textiles, packaging, waste electrical and electronic equipment, waste batteries and accumulators, and bulky waste, including mattresses and furniture;

(b)mixed waste and separately collected waste from other sources, where such waste is similar in nature and composition to waste from households;

Municipal waste does not include waste from production, agriculture, forestry, fishing, septic tanks and sewage network and treatment, including sewage sludge, end-of-life vehicles or construction and demolition waste.

This definition is without prejudice to the allocation of responsibilities for waste management between public and private actors;

2c.‘construction and demolition waste’ means waste generated by construction and demolition activities;

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3.‘waste oils’ means any mineral or synthetic lubrication or industrial oils which have become unfit for the use for which they were originally intended, such as used combustion engine oils and gearbox oils, lubricating oils, oils for turbines and hydraulic oils;

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4.‘bio-waste’ means biodegradable garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households, offices, restaurants, wholesale, canteens, caterers and retail premises and comparable waste from food processing plants;

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4a.‘food waste’ means all food as defined in Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) that has become waste;

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5.‘waste producer’ means anyone whose activities produce waste (original waste producer) or anyone who carries out pre-processing, mixing or other operations resulting in a change in the nature or composition of this waste;

6.‘waste holder’ means the waste producer or the natural or legal person who is in possession of the waste;

7.‘dealer’ means any undertaking which acts in the role of principal to purchase and subsequently sell waste, including such dealers who do not take physical possession of the waste;

8.‘broker’ means any undertaking arranging the recovery or disposal of waste on behalf of others, including such brokers who do not take physical possession of the waste;

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9.‘waste management’ means the collection, transport, recovery (including sorting), and disposal of waste, including the supervision of such operations and the after-care of disposal sites, and including actions taken as a dealer or broker;

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10.‘collection’ means the gathering of waste, including the preliminary sorting and preliminary storage of waste for the purposes of transport to a waste treatment facility;

11.‘separate collection’ means the collection where a waste stream is kept separately by type and nature so as to facilitate a specific treatment;

12.‘prevention’ means measures taken before a substance, material or product has become waste, that reduce:

(a)the quantity of waste, including through the re-use of products or the extension of the life span of products;

(b)the adverse impacts of the generated waste on the environment and human health; or

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(c)the content of hazardous substances in materials and products;

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13.‘re-use’ means any operation by which products or components that are not waste are used again for the same purpose for which they were conceived;

14.‘treatment’ means recovery or disposal operations, including preparation prior to recovery or disposal;

15.‘recovery’ means any operation the principal result of which is waste serving a useful purpose by replacing other materials which would otherwise have been used to fulfil a particular function, or waste being prepared to fulfil that function, in the plant or in the wider economy. Annex II sets out a non-exhaustive list of recovery operations;

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15a.‘material recovery’ means any recovery operation, other than energy recovery and the reprocessing into materials that are to be used as fuels or other means to generate energy. It includes, inter alia, preparing for re-use, recycling and backfilling;

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16.‘preparing for re-use’ means checking, cleaning or repairing recovery operations, by which products or components of products that have become waste are prepared so that they can be re-used without any other pre-processing;

17.‘recycling’ means any recovery operation by which waste materials are reprocessed into products, materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes. It includes the reprocessing of organic material but does not include energy recovery and the reprocessing into materials that are to be used as fuels or for backfilling operations;

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17a.‘backfilling’ means any recovery operation where suitable non-hazardous waste is used for purposes of reclamation in excavated areas or...