Taking products out of waste law: a (new) legal framework for the circular economy

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorMaitre‐Ekern, Eléonore
dc.date.accessioned2022-09-08T09:22:48Z
dc.date.available2022-09-08T09:22:48Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.description.abstractAt the heart of EU waste law lies the prevention principle. Preventive measures in environmental law aim to avoid and reduce the risk of environmental harm that can target both pollution sources and point of impact. The point of departure of waste law is that waste is a source of pollution, the unwanted outcome of the production and consumption processes, an environmental externality. The risk results from the actions of the holder of a substance or object from the moment where that substance or object is no longer wanted and (carelessly) disposed of. Preventing waste is hence about ensuring that a discarded object is disposed in the least environmentally harmful manner. It is also about much more than that. It is about everything that takes place before a product or material becomes waste, it is about extended product lifetime, repair and re-use, sharing and renting. The role of waste law might have consisted in avoiding landfilling, ensuring that collection and recovery schemes are in place, and that information flows between producers, consumers and waste managers. The rest, the prevention of products from becoming waste in the first place, could arguably have been pursued in another (more fitting) context. EU legislators, and the CJEU, saw things differently. A wide definition of waste captured in effect the major issues of prevention. As a result, waste recovery is facing today great regulatory challenges, such as stringent conditions about when waste ceases to be waste (i.e. ‘end-of-waste’) and abiding by the strict rules about chemical production (stemming from the REACH regulation). This paper aims at critically examining the existing EU legal framework on waste, in particular on issues of objectives and scope and laying the foundations for a new legal paradigm in accordance with the goals of the Circular Economy. It is argued that the definition of waste needs to be narrowed to leave room for the ‘circular’ model to flourish. It follows that a (new) legal framework - focusing on products - shall be established in the vacuum left by a shrunken waste law.en
dc.identifier.isbn978-3-7983-3125-9
dc.identifier.urihttps://depositonce.tu-berlin.de/handle/11303/17386
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-16167
dc.language.isoen
dc.relation.ispartof10.14279/depositonce-9253
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject.ddc500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik
dc.subject.ddc600 Technik, Technologie
dc.subject.ddc300 Sozialwissenschaften
dc.subject.otherEU lawen
dc.subject.otherwaste lawen
dc.subject.otherproductsen
dc.subject.othercircular economyen
dc.titleTaking products out of waste law: a (new) legal framework for the circular economyen
dc.typeConference Objecten
dc.type.versionpublishedVersionen
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.editorNissen, Nils F.
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.editorJaeger-Erben, Melanie
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.originalpublishernameUniversitätsverlag der TU Berlinen
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.originalpublisherplaceBerlinen
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.pageend502en
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.pagestart495en
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.proceedingstitlePLATE – Product lifetimes and the environment : 3rd PLATE Conference, September 18–20, 2019 Berlin, Germanyen
tub.accessrights.dnbfreeen
tub.affiliationFak. 4 Elektrotechnik und Informatik::Inst. Hochfrequenz- und Halbleiter-Systemtechnologien::FG Transdisziplinäre Nachhaltigkeitsforschung in der Elektronik
tub.affiliation.facultyFak. 4 Elektrotechnik und Informatik
tub.affiliation.groupFG Transdisziplinäre Nachhaltigkeitsforschung in der Elektronik
tub.affiliation.instituteInst. Hochfrequenz- und Halbleiter-Systemtechnologien
tub.publisher.universityorinstitutionUniversitätsverlag der TU Berlinen

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
PLATE_2019_495.pdf
Size:
820.74 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download

Collections

Publications