Council Directive 1999/31/ECShow full title

Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste

Article 3U.K.Scope

1.Member States shall apply this Directive to any landfill as defined in Article 2(g).

2.Without prejudice to existing Community legislation, the following shall be excluded from the scope of this Directive:

  • the spreading of sludges, including sewage sludges, and sludges resulting from dredging operations, and similar matter on the soil for the purposes of fertilisation or improvement,

  • the use of inert waste which is suitable, in redevelopment/restoration and filling-in work, or for construction purposes, in landfills,

  • the deposit of non-hazardous dredging sludges alongside small waterways from where they have been dredged out and of non-hazardous sludges in surface water including the bed and its sub soil[F1.]

  • [F2. . . . .]

[F13. The management of waste from land-based extractive industries, that is to say, the waste arising from the prospecting, extraction, including the pre-production development stage, treatment and storage of mineral resources and from the working of quarries shall be excluded from the scope of this Directive where it falls within the scope of other Union legislative acts.]

4.Without prejudice to Directive 75/442/EEC Member States may declare, at their own option, parts or all of Articles 6(d), 7(i), 8(a)(iv), 10, 11(1)(a), (b) and (c), 12(a) and (c), Annex I, points 3 and 4, Annex II (except point 3, level 3, and point 4) and Annex III, points 3 to 5 to this Directive not applicable to:

(a)landfill sites for non-hazardous or inert wastes with a total capacity not exceeding 15 000 tonnes or with an annual intake not exceeding 1 000 tonnes serving islands, where this is the only landfill on the island and where this is exclusively destined for the disposal of waste generated on that island. Once the total capacity of that landfill has been used, any new landfill site established on the island shall comply with the requirements of this Directive;

(b)landfill sites for non-hazardous or inert waste in isolated settlements if the landfill site is destined for the disposal of waste generated only by that isolated settlement.

Not later than two years after the date laid down in Article 18(1), Member States shall notify the Commission of the list of islands and isolated settlements that are exempted. The Commission shall publish the list of islands and isolated settlements.

5.Without prejudice to Directive 75/442/EEC Member States may declare, at their own option, that underground storage as defined in Article 2(f) of this Directive can be exempted from the provisions in Article 13(d) and in Annex I, point 2, except first indent, points 3 to 5 and in Annex III, points 2, 3 and 5 to this Directive.