European Commission recommends higher taxes on waste

The European Commission recommends Member States , applying of higher taxes or prohibitions related to storage and waste incineration.

Romania has one of the worst results from European Union in waste recycling.

According to a report of the Commission, some Member States recycle up to 70percent and don’t bury almost anything, while others continue to store in landfills over three quarters of the waste.

The report identifies the best solutions for reducing to zero the landfills waste disposal and maximize recycling, goals that the Commission has undertaken in a roadmap with a deadline by 2020.

Until then, Europe's waste should be managed as resource.

According to the Commission, while Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Netherlands have stored in landfills less than 3percent of waste produced by people or institutions, in 2010 Bulgaria applied this method for all waste and Romania for 99percent of them.

Besides higher taxes or prohibitions related to storage and waste incineration, the European Commission also recommends accountability measures to producers, but also introduction of payment systems based on generated waste - this encouraged the citizens of countries that have applied it to selectively collect waste.

In the same year 2010, it is estimated that in Romania one person produced more than 360 kilograms of waste, the European average being over 500 kilograms per person.

At European level were still recycled 25percent of waste.

Translated by Ioana Vioreanu
MTTLC, Bucharest University