Hazardous Waste Europe is a member of the Zero Pollution Stakeholders Platform.
During the High Level Launch Meeting, on December 16th, our President delivered the HWE’s core message:
Hazardous Waste Europe is a EU business association of hazardous waste operators present on the whole value chain of hazardous waste management, from collection to final treatment.
We treat pollution of all kinds by providing hazardous waste its appropriate treatment. It can be regeneration, recycling, material recovery, hazardous waste incineration, physico-chemical treatments specifically of wastewaters, soil remediation, and hazardous waste landfilling. We operate IED and SEVESO installations and we have expertise in the treatment of the most harmful chemicals including those internationally recognised like POPs and mercury.
As we stand at the end of the value chain, we definitively act as the last bastion to destroy toxicity, limit dispersion of pollutants in the environment and we ensure non-toxic recycling. It is our responsibility.
Our existence results from the necessity to manage all unavoidable hazardous waste inherent to our way of living even though we expect it to be much more sustainable and resilient in the future. Consequently and according to the zero-pollution hierarchy, our commitment in the platform would mainly bring expertise in Eliminate & Remediate and Minimise & Control.
HWE expects the Platform to develop operational tools supporting stakeholders benchmarking their level of implication in reaching the 2030 and 2050 goals.
The list of actions foreseen by the Commission to meet these goals is very ambitious and HWE endorses it and is already active in many of them. According to this action plan and in consistency with the Group specific’s tasks and our expectations, we would advocate 3 broad initiatives:
- drawing up guidelines to address the risk of contamination of end-of-life materials and sewage sludges impeding high quality recycling and perpetuating the presence of substances of concern in the material loops, waters and soils. It shall encompass good practices in order to comply with the Regulation on POPs but also to ensure that other legacy substances and substances of very high concern are appropriately extracted from the wider economy,
- assessing in a much easier way real environmental performances of, at least, IED installations in terms of emissions to air and water
- developing a comprehensive methodology which can apply in all circumstances in order to address efficiently and as fast as possible issues when new substances are identified as a threat to the planet. This will steadily occur in the future as we get more and more knowledge on chemicals. Industries, Authorities and NGOs need clear requirements and stable decisions to take the right decisions. PFAS is a good case study.
It is a deep honour to sit in this platform, to be part of the solution and see our expertise acknowledged. We are eager to share our operational experience to discuss and implement the best practices to create a zero pollution ambition for a non toxic environment.