The EU has reached a deal to stop sending waste to countries that can’t process it. The European Union Parliament announced on Friday that legislators and member states had reached an agreement to update the bloc’s waste shipment policy and stop exporting particular types of garbage to countries that are unable to treat it properly.
“Exports of certain non-hazardous wastes and mixtures of non-hazardous wastes will be allowed only to those non-OECD countries that consent and fulfill the criteria to treat such waste in an environmentally sound manner” , the European Parliament announced.
In addition, compliance with international workers’ rights will be taken into consideration, as stated in the document.
It was recommended by the European Commission in 2021 that EU regulations on waste shipments be revised in order to make it more difficult for member states to dump their rubbish in nations with lower incomes.
In a statement, Danish MP Pernille Weiss claimed that the European Union will finally “assume responsibility” for its plastic trash by prohibiting exporting such material to nations that are not members of the OECD.
According to the European Parliament, EU countries must stop exporting plastic garbage to poorer nations within two and a half years of the law coming into force. The Parliament also announced that limits for plastic waste exports to countries inside the OECD, the group of the world’s leading developed countries, will also be tightened.
In past years, about half of the garbage exported from the EU went to non-OECD nations with waste management regulations that were laxer than those in the EU. This resulted in the export of pollution from the EU.
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