TVA: Resource conservation - and a new name
The total revision of the Technical Ordinance on Waste gives greater priority to the avoidance, reduction and targeted recycling of waste. In order to reflect this expansion, it is now called the "Ordinance on the Avoidance and Disposal of Waste".
The total revision was necessary in order to do justice to the changes of the past decades and to master the new challenges in Swiss waste management. The most important changes in the newly named "Ordinance on the Prevention and Disposal of Waste" (VVEA), or "Waste Ordinance" for short, are as follows:
It now contains regulations for the recycling of biogenic waste, such as food or wood waste.
The requirements for landfills were adapted to the state of the art. In the process, it was more clearly regulated how aftercare must be ensured after the end of landfill operation.
Phosphorus recovery from sewage sludge, animal and bone meal becomes mandatory. A transitional period of ten years applies.
The ordinance now specifies how waste may be recycled in cement plants.
Reporting, duty to inform and training are newly regulated.
The Federal Council today put the VVEA into force on January 1, 2016.
Positive effects on the national economy
The Technical Regulation on Waste dates from 1990, and much has changed in the meantime. In the next few years, waste management is to develop into resource management. The main objective of the revision of the ordinance is the conservation of resources. This will have positive effects on the national economy. Closed raw material cycles lead to a more favorable disposal infrastructure in the medium and long term, as capacities can be saved at waste incineration plants. This benefits households and companies.
