Court of Justice, First Chamber)

17 November 2022, Case C‑238/21
(Porr Bau GmbH v Bezirkshauptmannschaft Graz-Umgebung)

Reference for a preliminary ruling – Environment – Waste – Directive 2008/98/EC – Point 1 of Article 3 – Article 5(1) – Article 6(1) –
Excavated materials – Concepts of ‘waste’ and of ‘by-product’ – Cessation of waste status

Point 1 of Article 3 and Article 6(1) of Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation under which uncontaminated excavated materials, which, pursuant to national law, are in the highest quality class,
• must be classified as ‘waste’ where their holder neither intends nor is required to discard them and those materials meet the conditions laid down in Article 5(1) of that directive for being classified as ‘by-products’, and
• only lose that waste status when they are used directly as a substitute and their holder has satisfied the formal criteria which are irrelevant for the purposes of environmental protection, if those criteria have the effect of undermining the attainment of the objectives of that directive.

categoria:European Case Law