Court advisor praises German landfill policy

A European court advisor has given wholehearted backing to Germany's strict waste landfilling law, which goes much further than EU rules require and has prompted complaints from German landfill operators.

In an opinion delivered on Tuesday, advocate general Dámaso Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer says a national law adopted in 2001 does not breach the EU's 1999 landfill directive. Germany hailed his statement as a sign of EU support for its controversial law, which will ban landfilling of untreated household waste from June 2005 (EED 28/10/04).