Conditions for the treatment of various types of waste and hazardous waste from professional and commercial activities

The Circular Economy Act has introduced new legal principles with the 5-stage waste hierarchy. According to this, waste must be avoided preparation for reuse , the recycling , the other, especially the energy recovery and finally disposal. The hierarchy applies in principle to all types of waste. However, for individual waste streams, it needs to be specified by sub-legislative regulations in order to ensure legal and investment security. This has been achieved with the 2017 amended Commercial Waste Ordinance (GewAbfV) among others.

The GewAbfV regulates the management of commercial municipal waste and certain construction and demolition waste in such a way that it must be collected separately according to material streams and primarily sent for preparation for reuse and recycling. In the event that a producer collects 90 percent of its commercial waste separately and sends it for recycling, the remaining ten percent can be thermally recovered or disposed of without further pre-treatment. Otherwise, non-separated waste mixtures must undergo pre-treatment, in which a sorting rate of 85% and a recycling rate of 30% must be achieved. The sorting plants must have the prescribed plant components or be operated in combination with other sorting plants so that the required plant technology is available. Mineral waste must be processed in order to ensure that this waste is also recycled to the highest possible quality.

The implementation of the GewAbfV is the exclusive responsibility of the federal states.

Electrical and electronic waste

EU legal basis for the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is Directive 2012/19/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE Directive). The WEEE Directive was implemented nationally by the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act implemented.

The WEEE Directive lays down requirements for the disposal of WEEE. The basic principle here is product responsibility of the manufacturer. According to this, manufacturers are responsible for the waste management of their products throughout their entire life cycle.

Among other things, it must be ensured that:

• manufacturing companies of electrical and electronic equipment are responsible for the treatment and recovery of the collected or returned WEEE
• manufacturing companies, when they place a new appliance on the market, guarantee the financing of the subsequent environmentally sound disposal take over
• distributors under certain conditions take back EAG from take back from private households
• Producers and public waste management authorities must inform private households about waste prevention measures and the obligation to collect WEEE separately
• the targets laid down in the targets set out in the Directive for collection and recycling or recovery are met

WEEE must be collected separately from residual waste in accordance with the Directive. The return of old appliances must be free of charge for private consumers. the return of old appliances must be free of charge . Appropriate collection systems must be set up based on population density. The take-back obligation for distributors can apply both to distributors with a certain sales area for electrical appliances and to certain food distributors. Manufacturing companies have special labeling obligations to be observed. For example, all electrical and electronic equipment that falls within the scope of the directive must be marked with the symbol of the crossed-out wheelie garbage can symbol. Consumers must be informed of the meaning of the symbol when the appliance is handed over. The directive also regulates technical requirements for the storage and treatment of waste equipment and specifies minimum requirements for this. The requirements for the treatment of collected appliances are based on the Ordinance on Requirements for the Treatment of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment.