What does EU Sustainable Finance package mean for waste management activities?
??On the 13th of June, the EC published its Sustainable finance package. The package aims to how the EU sustainable finance agenda can support companies and the financial sector by encouraging private funding of transition projects and technologies and facilitating financial flows to sustainable investments. The package shall ensure that the sustainable finance framework works for companies that want to invest in their transition to sustainability.
??EU Taxonomy Delegated Acts
As part of this comprehensive package, the EU Taxonomy Delegated Acts were also published, outlining the criteria for economic activities contributing significantly to non-climate environmental objectives. Within the transition to a circular economy objective, the European Commission has identified specific waste management activities that are considered "green."
The following waste management activities have been recognized as contributing substantially towards a circular economy:
1?? Collection and transport of non-hazardous and hazardous waste: Separate collection and transport of non-hazardous and hazardous waste aimed at preparing for re-use or recycling, including the construction, operation and upgrade of facilities involved in the collection and transport of such waste, such as civic amenity centres and waste transfer stations, as a means for material recovery.
For municipal waste streams, the activity must comply with at least one of the following criteria:
(a) The activity primarily utilizes door-to-door collection schemes or supervised collection points, ensuring a high level of separate collection and minimal contamination.
(b) The activity conducts separate waste collection within publicly organized waste management systems, where waste producers are charged through a pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) mechanism. Alternatively, other economic instruments must be in place to incentivize waste segregation at the source.
(c) The activity carries out separate waste collection outside of publicly organized waste management systems, employing deposit and refund systems or other economic instruments directly encouraging waste segregation at the source.
2?? Recovery of bio-waste through anaerobic digestion or composting: Construction and operation of facilities for the treatment of separately collected bio-waste through anaerobic digestion or composting with the resulting production and utilisation of biogas, biomethane, digestate, compost or chemicals.
(a) The bio-waste that is used for anaerobic digestion or composting is source segregated and collected separately. Where bio-waste is collected in biodegradable bags, the bags have the appropriate compostable certification standard EN 13432:200058.
(b) In these anaerobic digestion plants, source segregated bio-waste from separate collection constitutes at least 70% of the input feedstock, measured in weight, as an annual average. Co-digestion may cover up to 30% of the input feedstock of advanced bioenergy feedstock listed in Annex IX to Directive (EU) 2018/2001, which may not include contaminated feedstock coming from biomass fraction of mixed municipal and industrial waste. The input does not include feedstock excluded in Part II of Annex II to Regulation (EU) 2019/1009, for Component Material Category (CMC) 3 (Compost) in accordance with point (c) of that category and for Component Material Category (CMC) 5 (Digestate other than fresh crop digestate) in accordance with point (c) of that category.
(c) The activity produces one of the following:
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(d). Quality assurance of the production process is performed using Module D1 set out in Regulation (EU) 2019/1009.
(e) Compost and digestate complying with Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 or equivalent national rules is not landfilled.
(f) Where anaerobic digestion is installed, the produced biogas is used directly for the generation of electricity or heat, upgraded to bio-methane for use as a fuel, directly injected in the gas grid and further used for energy purposes by replacing natural gas, used as industry feedstock to produce other chemicals or converted into hydrogen for use as a fuel.
3?? Sorting and material recovery of non-hazardous waste: Construction, upgrade, and operation of facilities for the sorting or recovery of non-hazardous waste streams into high quality secondary raw materials using a mechanical transformation process. The economic activity does not include sorting and recovery of combustible fractions from mixed residual waste for the production of refuse derived fuel, such as in mechanical and biological treatment plants.
1. Origin of the feedstock material
The non-hazardous waste feedstock originates from one or multiple of the following sources:
(a) separately collected and transported waste, including in commingled fractions;
(b) non-hazardous waste fractions originating from dismantling and depollution activities from end-of-life products;
(c) construction and demolition waste from selective demolition or otherwise segregated at source;
(d) non-hazardous waste fractions originating from sorting of mixed waste intended for recycling where the facility meets a defined quality criteria of performance and the waste is coming from areas complying with separate collection obligations laid out in Directive 2008/98/EC.
2. Material recovery
The activity attains or exceeds existing plant-specific material recovery rates by competent authorities set in applicable waste management plans, permits or contracts or by Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes. The facility implements internally defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track performance or attainment of applicable recovery rates.
3. Proper management of waste
The facility recovering non-hazardous waste has implemented Best Available Techniques (BAT) based on BAT 2 on improving overall environmental performance of the plant set out in the best available techniques (BAT) conclusions for waste treatment.
Circularity economist
1 年SRF included or not?