Italy rapped for waste violations

Waste

Commission v Italy

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has held that Italy has failed in its obligations under Articles 4, 8 and 9 of the Waste Framework Directive, Article 2(1) of the Hazardous Waste Directive and Article 14(a) – (c) of the Landfill Directive.

The Commission brought the action on the basis that Italy had failed to adopt the necessary measures to ensure that waste was recovered or disposed of without endangering human health and without using processes or methods that could harm the environment and to prohibit the abandonment, dumping or uncontrolled disposal of waste.

It had also failed to ensure that any holder of waste has it handled by a public or private undertaking which carried out the recovery or disposal operations, or recovers or disposes of it himself in accordance with the Waste Framework Directive.

A further failure related to ensuring that any establishment or undertaking which carried out waste disposal operations was required to obtain a permit from the competent authorities. In relation to hazardous waste, Italy failed to ensure that at every hazardous waste tipping site all waste was recorded and identified.

Finally, in relation to landfills already granted a permit or already operational at 16th July 2001, Italy failed to ensure that site conditioning plans were submitted by all operators.

The ECJ upheld all of the complaints of the Commission.

The text of the case can be accessed at the following link.