Members of the European Parliament have voted for binding targets to reduce the amount of waste produced in the EU, BBC reports.
The parliament said production of waste should be stabilised at 2008 levels by 2012, and scaled back by 2020.
MEPs also said 50% of municipal waste and 70% of industrial waste should be recycled by the same 2020 deadline.
Each EU citizen produces more than 500kg of waste per year, with recycling rates varying from below 10% to above 50% in some countries.
Member states are expected to fight the parliament's proposals, but MEPs say the vote at least allows an important debate to begin.
Incineration dispute
"We are going to work very hard to sell it to the member states," said British MEP Caroline Jackson, who is guiding the legislation through the parliament.
This is what our voters expect - they expect to be told not to produce so much waste."
The vote came as MEPs gave a first reading to a revised version of the EU's Waste Framework Directive, first adopted in 1975.
The European Commission, which put forward the revised directive in 2005, does not favour binding limits on waste production.
MEPs also modified the commission's proposal to allow incineration of waste to be classified as "recovery" rather than "disposal" when the incinerator is an efficient source of energy.
They accepted the principle that incineration could count as recovery, but did not define how energy-efficient the process needed to be in order to qualify.
Environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth and the Green Party claimed victory, saying that the parliament had rejected the "re-branding" of incineration as recovery, but Caroline Jackson said the result was ambiguous.
Opponents of incineration say that it wastes materials that can be re-used, and creates greenhouse gases.
Advocates say it would apply to materials that cannot be recycled, would result in the consumption of less fossil fuel, and prevent waste going to landfill sites where it produces methane - a very powerful greenhouse gas.
Waste hierarchy
The German EU presidency aims to get EU member states to adopt a position on the revised directive before the end of June.
If, as expected, governments reject binding waste prevention and recycling targets, the two sides will attempt to reach a compromise in a process known as conciliation.
Caroline Jackson said the recycling targets might be "unrealistic" but they provided something to aim at.
However, she said there were signals that the member states may accept another amendment introduced by the parliament, proposing a five-stage waste hierarchy.
This ranks waste treatment in the following order, from best to worst:
· Prevention and reduction of waste
· Re-use of waste
· Recycling of waste
· Other recovery operations
· Safe and environmentally sound disposal
Caroline Jackson said this did not impose firm obligations on member states, but would establish a "general rule or guiding principle" which could shape the next 50 years of waste management.
(BBC News, 13/02/2007)