Between 2010 and 2022, the amount of waste generated per person in the European Union has remained largely unchanged. On average, each person in the EU produces nearly 5 tonnes of waste per year when major mineral wastes, such as those from construction and demolition, are included. Even without these, the figure still stands at approximately 1.8 tonnes per person annually.
The EU has made notable progress in improving how waste is managed. The proportion of waste treated through recovery methods – such as recycling, backfilling, or incineration with energy recovery – increased from 45.9% in 2004 to 61.4% in 2022. However, landfilling still accounts for around 30% of all waste treatment, with some countries continuing to rely heavily on it. This is despite EU legislation such as the Landfill Directive, which aims to reduce the landfilling of municipal solid waste to 10% or less by 2035.
Landfilling remains the least preferred option in the EU’s Waste Hierarchy. When not properly managed, landfills can pose serious risks to human health, the environment, and the climate.
In this context, the Best Available Techniques Reference Document (BREF) for landfills (LAN BREF) offers a crucial opportunity to address these environmental and climate challenges. By setting minimum standards for landfill operation across Europe, the landfill BREF helps ensure that waste management practices are both effective and aligned with the EU’s sustainability goals.
The scope of these requirements will apply to any European landfill that receives more than 10 tonnes of waste per day or has a capacity exceeding 25,000 tonnes, excluding landfills of inert waste. Currently, approximately 2,800 landfills fall under the IED’s scope.
The future LAN BREF will also serve as technical guidance for achieving environmental compliance in various industrial sectors beyond the EU. BREFs are often implicitly referred to as minimum requirements or best practices beyond the EU, such as by the World Bank or OECD. They are widely applied in Mediterranean countries and are considered reference documents by other nations when developing environmental legislation, particularly in the Global South, which is of particular relevance in the context of waste treatment and landfilling.
Process and status
The LAN BREF process commenced with the formation of the Technical Working Group (TWG) at the beginning of 2025. Stakeholders submitted their responses to a first round of consultations (“frontloading”) in April 2025, followed by the first TWG meeting (“Kick-off Meeting”) in Seville in October 2025. Throughout 2026, the TWG commented on different draft versions of the questionnaire that will be used to collect data from landfill operators. It also participated in a dedicated workshop on monitoring diffuse methane emissions from landfills and in site visits to landfills in France and Austria. The entire process is expected to take no more than four years.
Main Environmental issues
The LAN BREF will address the key environmental aspects of landfill construction, operation, closure and aftercare. These include diffuse and channelled emissions to air; the generation, composition and treatment of leachate; emissions to soil, groundwater and surface water; and the use of resources such as water, energy, chemicals and construction materials. The BREF will also consider circular-economy objectives, resource efficiency and the decarbonisation of landfill operations.
If not designed and managed in an environmentally sound manner, landfills can pose significant risks to human health, the environment and the climate. These risks may persist long after waste disposal has ended, making effective closure and aftercare arrangements particularly important.
One of the principal environmental issues to be addressed through the LAN BREF is the considerable climate impact of landfills resulting from the decomposition of biodegradable waste. This process generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The waste sector is responsible for nearly 20% of global anthropogenic methane emissions, with landfills alone contributing approximately 10%. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), meeting the 1.5°C climate target requires methane emissions from the waste sector to be reduced by 30–35% below 2020 levels by 2030 and by nearly 55% by 2050.
The LAN BREF provides an important opportunity to reduce landfill methane emissions throughout the entire lifetime of a landfill, notably by:
- regulating the input of organic waste to landfills;
- implementing effective methane-capture and treatment techniques, such as flaring; and
- optimising landfill operations, for example through temporary covering, as well as regulating aftercare once the operational phase of a landfill has ended.
To this end, the EEB has submitted various proposals for technologies and procedures that should be considered in the BREF – the so-called “candidate Best Available Techniques and Emerging Techniques”. The proposals for addressing methane emissions include:
- stringent waste acceptance criteria and procedures to prevent insufficiently stabilised biodegradable waste from being landfilled, including testing the biological stability of treatment residues;
- gas control plans based on regularly updated landfill-gas generation models, site-specific waste data and monitoring of the performance of gas collection systems;
- early gas recovery during waste placement, combined with the rapid application of temporary covers and the minimisation of exposed tipping areas;
- overextraction to maximise gas recovery, rather than limiting extraction to the quantity or methane concentration required for energy generation;
- regular monitoring and remediation of leaks and methane hotspots;
- controlled high-temperature flaring and other appropriate oxidation techniques for recovered landfill gas; and
- microbial methane-oxidation systems for low methane loads when active gas recovery and flaring are no longer viable.
The EEB has also submitted candidate BAT proposals concerning landfill closure and aftercare. These call for approaches that maintain environmental protection for as long as a landfill poses a risk, establish transparent and site-specific criteria for ending aftercare, and ensure that adequate financial provisions reflect the actual expected duration of aftercare.
Beyond methane emissions, PFAS pollution is another important issue for the LAN BREF. PFAS contained in landfilled waste can be released through leachate and landfill gas, creating potential pathways to surface water, groundwater and the atmosphere. Their high persistence means that releases may continue throughout landfill operation and aftercare.
The EEB’s candidate BAT proposals therefore address PFAS at several stages. The proposed measures include maximising landfill-gas recovery and applying controlled high-temperature flaring to destroy PFAS and other persistent pollutants present in the recovered gas.
“How can you make a difference?”
As stated above, among other topics, the EEB has identified the following issues as particularly important and would appreciate any input to substantiate their environmental significance and data from demonstration or commercially operating plants (worldwide) showcasing best-in-class pollution prevention performance:
- Addressing methane emissions by regulating the (organic) input to landfills (i.e., Waste Acceptance Criteria, WACs), implementing effective methane capture and treatment (e.g. flaring) techniques, optimizing the general operations of landfills (e.g. temporary covering) as well as regulating the aftercare, once the regular operation of a landfill ends.
- Addressing PFAS pollution from landfill gas and leachate, e.g., through regulating the PFAS-containing incoming waste (i.e., WACs), capturing and stabilizing PFAS from leachate, as well as capturing and destroying PFAS in landfill gas through high-temperature flaring.
Contacts
Fynn Hauschke, Senior Policy Officer Circular Economy and Waste, fynn.hauschke@eeb.org
Isabelle Radovan, Policy Officer Circular Economy and Waste, Isabelle.radovan@eeb.org