Environment Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered at on 14 February 2006.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether she intends to delay the application of the Waste Incineration Directive to tallow until the Directorate-General Environment has completed its review of the directive's impact on the combustion of tallow.
The Waste Incineration Directive has been transposed into national law and we currently have no grounds on which to change that. I am advised that, as the law currently stands, the burning of waste tallow as fuel remains subject to the requirements of that directive.
In June 2005, the Government wrote to the European Commission expressing its view that the existing requirements of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) (75/442/EEC as amended) and the Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (96/61/EC) are sufficient to ensure that the burning of waste tallow as fuel is carried out in ways which protect the environment and public and animal health. The Government called for the EU Animal By-Products Regulation (ABPR) and the WID to be amended accordingly.
In response, the Commission stated that there did not appear to be sufficient justification at present for it to propose an exclusion of the burning of waste tallow from the WID. However, the Commission also confirmed that the WID is not intended to discourage uses of waste as competitive and efficient alternative energy sources, agreed that it is desirable that it does not have such an effect and has initiated further analysis of the issue in the form of a study. This study should help to clarify the wider environmental and economic impacts of the current legislation.
I recognise that recent announcements by the European Commission have raised the possibility that this legal position might change in the future. My understanding is that the Commission's study of the environmental impacts of burning tallow has now commenced and will report in the second half of 2006. If the outcome of this study were favourable to the burning of waste tallow as fuel without having to meet the requirements of the WID, then this could lead to a change in the relevant legislation although it is suggested that this is unlikely to occur before 2009. I must also stress that such an outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion.
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