Waste in the EU Law

Abstract

Definition of waste in the EU legal regulations is very vague. Therefore, the Court of Justice of the EU and the European Commission (by its guidance) try to help to the national courts with the interpretation of the concept of waste. There are many judgements that offer examples and circumstances that should be considered when defining a substance as waste. However, the fact that the concept of waste depends on the verb ‘discard’ which should be interpreted according to the relevant circumstances in the particular cases causes that the concept of waste remains still very vague. The situation is also complicated by the fact that the concept of waste does not have the same meaning with other relevant international documents. The aim of the paper is to collect the last development of the concept of waste in the judgements of the Court of Justice of the EU. In the paper, there are pointed out how the relevant circumstances of the word ‘discard’ should be considered in the present view of the Court of Justice of the EU. In conclusions, we try to summary the main categories of waste regarding the interpretation of the verb ‘discard’.