Greece at risk of missing EU waste management targets

Greece is among the 14 EU member-states that are at risk of missing the 2020 target of 50 percent recycling of municipal waste, the European Commission said in a report on the implementation of EU legislation published on Monday.

Besides Greece, the other countries are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

Legal obligations on the management of municipal waste (waste from households and similar waste) are laid down in the Waste Framework Directive. These include a 50 percent municipal waste preparing for re-use or recycling target to be achieved by 2020.

The Directive was recently revised to include new and more ambitious targets: 55 percent to be achieved by 2025, 60 percent by 2030 and 65 percent by 2035. It also also introduces a system of early warning reports to assess...