Waste or Resource – The Function of Waste Law in a Circular Economy

Generation of waste is unavoidable. While human use of natural resources, at least initially, is often about refining resources, it typically also involves a reduction in value in the form of, for example, losses of energy or gradual deterioration of physical objects. The use of resources thus contributes to the production of waste. Waste is considered a nuisance and has historically been dealt with in the cheapest, or easiest way possible. Current resource use and consumption rates are, however, often considered unstainable, and according to some estimations humanity is currently consuming about three plantes worth of resources. Circular economy, where generation of waste is minimized, and reutilization of waste is increased, has therefore been proposed as an economic model for the future. One, frequently mentioned, barrier towards circular economy is the legal system. When it comes to new and innovative practices, legal systems often adapt at slow pace. This is also the case for European waste law. Waste is within the European Union (EU) regulated through the 2008 Waste Framework Directive, which is a minimum directive. Waste law is an area where the EU exercises great influence over Member State (MS) policy and MS may not implement laws that provide for a lower level of protection than what EU law mandates. As is often the case in studies related to environmental law, the legal system in focus for this study is EU environmental law, as a large part of the national regulations are either influenced by or derived from EU law as a large share of national provisions are either affected by, or stem from EU law (or both). The aim of this dissertation is to examine the role of law in relation to both environmental protection in the immediate sense, and reutilization of waste. Previous research has established that waste law can be said to have developed around how waste is defined legally, and that the definition of waste is a cornerstone of the entire corpus of waste law as it determines what can and cannot be controlled by the substantive rules the framework provides. To this end, the dissertation examines the relationship between key terms for the applicability of the WFD, the concepts of waste, by-product and end-of-waste through legal analysis. It builds on previous research by assessing the coherency between these terms. Special attention is paid to under what circumstances a substance or object may transform into a waste and vice versa. The dissertation