Dutch National Waste Management Plan in operation

Early in March saw the introduction of the Dutch national waste management plan. 83% of waste substances in the Netherlands must be applied to useful purposes by 2012. This is an objective of the National Waste Management Plan (LAP), which centralises control of waste management at national level and replaces numerous provincial plans. This will bring the policy more into line with the scale enlargement taking place in waste management at both national and European level. Under the National Waste Management Plan, the disposal of waste by incineration and landfill must be limited and the liberalisation of the waste market must be continued.



The main aim of the National Waste Management Plan is to ensure that the proportion of waste applied for useful purposes rises from just over 76% in 2002 to 83% in 2012. This will be done by both promoting the recycling of waste substances and by applying non-recyclable waste substances for useful purposes or as fuel. This will make it possible to economise on ordinary fuels such as coal, oil and gas.



The Plan also makes an important contribution to climate policy since it creates a financial incentives framework in order to support measures for the use of wastes as fuel.



Another aim of the National Waste Management Plan is to ensure that the categories of waste dumped in landfill sites are limited to those which cannot be recycled or incinerated. This will reduce the amount of methane emitted by these sites. In addition, it will cut the amount of land needed for landfill sites and reduce the lengthy after-care which these sites need once they are closed.



Liberalisation



Another important part of the LAP is the further liberalisation of the waste market. Some 75% of Dutch waste is already processed in a virtually free market with few constraints on import and export. However, the government authorities still play an important role in relation to the other 25%. This concerns, in particular, the collection of domestic waste and the disposal of waste by incineration in a plant or dumping in a landfill site.



In the Netherlands 99% of the incineration capacity and approximately 80% of the landfill capacity is operated by provinces, municipalities and government-run companies. The object is to liberalise still further the disposal of waste by incineration and in due course (2006) to abolish the constraints imposed by national borders. An important aim of the Plan is therefore to achieve a level European playing field.



The National Waste Management Plan has now taken effect and is valid for four years (2002-2006). A summary of the plan is available (0.6MB) from the Dutch environment ministry’s website at:



http://www2.minvrom.nl/Docs/internationaal/NMP4wwwengels.pdf