The regulation incorporates municipal waste landfill reduction targets of a maximum of 10% by 2035.
The new Royal Decree 646/2020 aims to reduce the environmental impact and the risk to people’s health in waste disposal operations in landfills and to this end it will make prior treatment of the waste mandatory, as well as its prior characterization, among other measures.
This regulation, which replaces Royal Decree 1481/2001, prevents waste from being deposited in landfills that has not been previously treated to reduce the amount to be deposited or the dangers that its deposit may pose to human health or the environment. In addition, the waste must be previously characterized in order to provide the necessary information to the landfills so that they can compare the values obtained in the characterization with the limit values established as admission criteria for each class of landfill, in addition to having the physicochemical and hazardous characteristics of each waste dumped.
These practices were already part of the usual methodology of LITOCLEAN, which in all its projects seeks to recover the maximum possible percentage of waste to meet the objectives of the circular economy.
Along the same lines, the decree sets the target for reducing municipal waste discharges to a maximum of 10% of the total by January 1, 2035.
Also in June, Royal Decree 553/2020 was approved, regulating the transfer of waste within the State’s territory, which establishes that a treatment contract, prior notification and the waste identification document will be required to transfer waste.
The legislation advances the objective of promoting the circular economy and sustainable development that LITOCLEAN works for.