EU SPECIFIC WATER LEGISLATIONS

This directive establishes requirements with respect to the collection, treatment, and discharge of urban wastewater and the treatment and discharge of wastewater from certain industrial sectors (Article 1) by combining quality objectives and emission limit values.

The establishment of a collecting system for urban wastewater (article 3)

The agglomerations with a “population equivalent” (p.e.) of more than 15,000, should have been equipped at the latest by 31 December 2000 with urban wastewater collecting systems, and those with a population equivalent of more than 2,000 by 2005 (Article 4). As underlined by the Court of Justice of the EU, article 4 (1) “imposes upon the Member States a precise obligation as to result to be achieved, worded in a clear and unequivocal manner” .
For the purposes of the directive, population equivalent means the organic biodegradable load has a five-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) of 60 g of oxygen per day” (art. 2(6)). Such collecting systems must take into account wastewater treatment requirements, and their design, construction and maintenance must be “in accordance with the best technical knowledge not entailing excessive costs” (Annex I-A).
In the context of the Waster Directive 2008/98/EC before its modification by Directive (EU) 2018/851, the Court of Justice ruled that wastewater which escapes from a sewerage network maintained by a statutory sewerage company constitutes waste within the meaning of EU waste legislation. While the scope of application of such waste legislation generally excludes wastewater, this is only “to the extent that they are covered by other community legislation” (Article 2(2) of Directive 2008/98 on waste) . Yet, Directive 91/271 had been found by the Court not to be “other legislation within the meaning of waste legislation because such legislation should include precise provisions organising its management as waste and ensuring a level of protection which is at least equivalent to that resulting from waste legislation.” For the Court, Directive 91/2001 does not ensure such a level of protection and it does no more than lay down, as regards leakage of wastewater, a duty to prevent the risk of such leaks when designing, constructing and maintaining collecting systems in relation to the disposal of waste or decontamination of contaminated soil .
More recently, the Court was requested by the Estonian Court of Appeal to interpret article 6 (4) of Directive 2008/98 which sets out the criteria for determining which waste ceases to be a waste; in this case, the applicant Tallinna Vesi challenged the Estonian authority ‘s refusal to recognise end-of-waste status for sewage sludge after recovery treatment. The Court underlines that no criteria have been set at the EU for determining end-of-waste status and “such end status depends on the existence of criteria laid down in a generally applicable national legal act concerning that type of waste”; The Court deduced that “it does not allow a waste holder, in circumstance such as those in the main proceedings, to demand the recognition of end of waste status by the competent authority of the Member States or by a court of that Member State” .
Where the establishment of a collecting system is not justified, either because it would produce no environmental benefits or because it would involve excessive costs, individual systems or other appropriate systems which achieve the same level of environmental protection shall be used (Article 3). Significant delays occurred in the implementation of that obligation.