CONSULTATION BRIEF ON THE WASTE MANAGEMENT (LANDFILL)(AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS, 2019
1. BACKGROUND
The Waste Management (Landfill) (Amendment) Regulations, 2019 were published as Legal Notice 7 of 2019 in the Government Gazette of Malta No. 20,120 on 18 January 2019. These regulations cater for an omission in the previous transposition process of EU Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste. The latter Directive was transposed through Legal Notice 168 of 2002, i.e. the Waste Management (Landfill) Regulations (S.L 549.29), however, the definition of ‘treatment’ as contained in article 2(h) of the Directive, was omitted from the Maltese regulations. Consequently, S.L 549.29 has been amended to include this definition as it stands in the Directive in order to ensure harmonisation of definitions within the EU member states.
2. IMPLICATIONS
The Waste Management (Landfill) (Amendment) Regulations, 2019, consists of two regulations, the title and the addition of a definition of ‘treatment’ in the principal regulations: ““treatment” means the physical, thermal, chemical or biological processes, including sorting, that change the characteristics of the waste in order to reduce its volume or hazardous nature, facilitate its handling or enhance recovery;”.
The above definition corresponds to that already found in the EU Landfill Directive and implies that pursuant to Article 6(a) of the said Directive, both the quantity and hazardous nature of waste intended for landfill should be reduced where appropriate and treatment must change the characteristics of the waste before it is landfilled.
3. COMMENTS
The Waste Management (Landfill) (Amendment) Regulations, 2019, were published through the use of article 54 and article 55(2) of the Environment Protection Act (Cap 549) due to a declaration of urgency for their publication by the Minister responsible for the Environment. In line with article 55(3) of Cap 549, the public is invited to make submissions to ERA with their comments as to why and how these regulations could be amended.
The Waste Management (Landfill) (Amendment) Regulations, 2019, are available from the following link.
Comments will be received by email on [email protected], until 18 February 2019.
Waste Management (Landfill) (Amendment) Regulations, 2019
Post Consultation Brief on the Waste Management (Landfill) (Amendment) Regulations, 2019
