ABSTRACT
Reducing the amounts of waste going to landfill is a primary aim of European environmental policies related to climate change. The effectiveness of European policies will be based on sound implementation at the levels where waste is being generated and disposed of. European efforts at reducing landfill are a priority in the waste hierarchy,
and one of the pillars of EU waste strategy is the 1999 Landfill Directive (EEA 2007), which is being implemented at member state level in association with national efforts regarding waste management, such as separate collection, recycling, incineration, and disposal and use of waste. These actions are devoted to diverting waste from landfill and reducing waste generated at source, to achieve a decoupling of different stages of the waste production chain. The EEA (2007: 3) has assessed that:
countries can be categorised under three waste management groupings, according to the strategies for diversion of municipal waste away from landfill, and the relative shares of landfill, materials recovery (mainly recycling and composting) and incineration. The first grouping comprises countries that have high levels of materials recovery and incineration, and relatively low levels of landfill. The second grouping includes countries with high materials recovery rates and medium levels of incineration, and medium dependence on landfill. The third grouping comprises countries where levels of both materials recovery and incineration are low, and dependence on landfill is relatively high.
