Court of Appeal clarifies end of waste test
The Court of Appeal recently issued judgment in the OSS Group case, restoring a degree of certainty to the legal criteria for waste recycling and recovery. In late 2006 the High Court had ruled that you could never turn a non-fuel waste into a non-waste fuel. The legal stance taken by the Environment Agency (EA) throughout the case was that the conversion of waste streams into fuel products was not possible other than in the “exceptional” case where the “waste” was waste fuel. The Court of Appeal rejected EA arguments that the Waste Oils Directive (WOD) and the Waste Incineration Directive (WID) should override the Waste Framework Directive (WFD), since the terms of the WOD do not indicate any intention to override the WFD, and WID does not cover the basic definition of “waste”.
The Court also rejected the EA’s attempt to apply a tighter, “special” set of criteria for “end of waste” to waste-derived fuels, robustly reinforcing the overriding application of the basic definition of “waste” in the WFD. Finding in favour of OSS’ arguments, and summarising the test for end of waste, the Court of Appeal stated “…it should be enough that the holder has converted the waste material into a distinct marketable product, which can be used in exactly the same way as an ordinary fuel, and with no worse environmental consequences”.
For further information on this case click here.
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