SPECIAL WASTE
9. At the same time, the Scottish Executive wishes to take the opportunity of a codification to notify those exemptions which deal with special waste to the European Commission. "Special waste" is the term used in Scotland for what is described as "hazardous waste" in Community legislation. Article 3 of the Hazardous Waste Directive 2 permits the system of exemptions provided for in the Waste Framework Directive to be extended to hazardous waste with, however, some provisos. No exemption is to be available for the disposal of its own hazardous waste by any establishment or undertaking. Exemptions for the recovery of hazardous wastes must be subject to general rules, and must be notified in advance to the Commission, so that Member States can be consulted.
10. An amendment to Regulation 17(1) of the WMLR by the Special Waste Regulations 1996 3 ensured that no exemption was available for the disposal by any establishment or undertaking of its own special waste. However, exemptions in force in Scotland (or other parts of the UK) dealing with special waste have not been notified to the Commission. The European Court of Justice found that this omission was a breach of Community law on 12 October 2004 4, in a case which addressed a range of failings by the UK in implementing the Hazardous Waste Directive. The further amendment to Regulation 17 proposed in this paper tidies the wording relating to special waste.
11. The Scottish Executive has been working to bring our transposition of the Hazardous Waste Directive up to date, and this process was largely completed by the Special Waste Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2004 5, which came fully into force on 1 July 2004. In particular, these Regulations applied the latest Europe-wide list of hazardous, or special wastes, in Scotland. The fact that the up-to-date list was not being applied in Scotland was an obstacle to notification.
12. Another obstacle to notification has been the sheer difficulty of notifying a Schedule which has been amended so frequently. The proposed codification has provided an opportunity to notify a single, accessible document.
13. While at present all exemptions are subject to the rules contained in the relevant paragraphs of the Schedule, we are proposing now to make a small number of amendments to those exemptions dealing with special waste to ensure that clear limit values are set. This would be in keeping with the requirements of the Hazardous Waste Directive. These amendments will be considered in more detail in the next section.