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being 45%. The mean rate of landfilling for hazardous waste is lower (22%) but
another 27% in average was reported as “other treatment”. Most Member States
reported that they had attained high degrees of self-sufficiency in terms of waste
disposal of around 99%, which essentially restates the position of the previous
implementation report for 1995-1997.
As regards waste oils, separate collection is an essential prerequisite for their
sound management. The replies to the questionnaires by Member States and
independent studies carried out by the Commission
37
revealed that the average
collection rate has increased compared to the previous period, however there is
room for improvement as 20% of the waste oils is still illegally dumped or illegally
burnt, thus strongly harming the environment. In particular some Member States
have to improve significantly their collection rates, setting up more efficient
collection systems.
The hierarchy of principles for waste oils management — regeneration, combus-
tion and safe destruction/tipping — is still insufficiently implemented. As far as
the recovery of waste oils is concerned, the use of waste oils as fuels remains by
far the predominant option for the management of waste oils. Regeneration is
still very scarce in the EU.
In that context, the Commission has launched infringement proceedings against
12 Member States (see table below) for not applying in practice Article 3 of the
Directive, that is by not giving in practice the priority to regeneration. In the
course of this exercise it was also pointed out to Member States that some of
them had not formally transposed Article 3 into national legislation. For some
Member States, the infringement proceedings also included an alleged breach
of Articles 2, 4 and 5 mirrored by a poor collection rate.
The main constraints preventing the Member States from giving the priority
to regeneration continue to be of an economical nature. The Commission is
to assess on a case by case basis if the constraint argued is really such and in
doing so it heavily relies on a previous ruling of the European Court of Justice
against Germany (C102-97) for failure to give the priority to the regeneration
of waste oils.
Parallel to the implementation of Directive 75/439/EEC as amended, a key issue
for the management of waste oils in the EU is the existing tax legislation. Based
on Directive 92/81/EEC
38
on the harmonization of the structures of excise du-
ties on mineral oils, Council Decision 97/425/EEC
39
authorizes Member States
to apply, and to continue to apply, to certain mineral oils when used for specific
purposes, exemptions from excise duty
40
. In this context 11 Member States are
applying derogations to excise duties for waste oils used as fuels. The Commis-
sion is of the view that these derogations are not in line with the application of
37
Critical review of existing studies and Life-Cycle Analysis on the regeneration and in-
cineration of waste oils, Final report, December 2001.
38
OJ L 316, 31.10.1992, p. 12.
39
OJ L 182, 10.07.1997, p. 22.
40
This Decision has been subsequently repealed. The most recent Decision concerning
a list of derogations under Article 8(4) of Directive 92/81/EEC is Council Decision
2001/224/EC of 12 March 2001 concerning reduced rates of excise duty and exemp-
tions from such duty on certain mineral oils when used for specific purposes (OJ L 84,
23.3.2001, p. 23).