Law on Waste No. 25/2004.

The basic objective of this Law is to allow the Government to carry out an environmentally sound management of waste so as to guarantee the preservation of people's health and the protection of the environment, and provide the legal framework necessary for the realization of the objectives of the National Plan of waste. This Law aims to incorporate a regulation of waste that is fully compatible with that of neighbouring countries and in this sense, the application to the incineration processes of Directive 2000/76/EC of the European Parliament and the Council, of 4 December 2000, relative to the incineration of waste, and of the references to the norm of the European Union related to waste and, more concretely, Directive 94/62/CE of the European Parliament and the Council, of 20 December 1994, concerning packaging waste, to Commission Decision 96/350/EC of 24 May 1996 adapting Annexes II.A and II.B to the Council Directive 75/442/EEC on waste, to Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste, Commission Decision 2000/532/EC, of 3 May 2000, on the European List of waste, to Directive 2002/96/EC of the European Parliament and the Council, of 27 January 2003 on electrical and electronic equipment waste, Directive 2003/4/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 28 January 2003 regarding public access to environmental information and the Directive 2004/12/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 11 February 2004 amending Directive 94/62/EC on packaging waste. The Law follows the common European hierarchical criteria of options for waste management, which were also approved in the National Plan for waste: prevention, reuse, recycling, energy recovery and safe disposal.
The Law integrates the governing elements of the principle of internalization of costs of environmental pollution by production agents, commonly called "polluter pays" and is applied broadly in all areas of environmental protection. Solid and liquid waste are both included in the scope of this Law because of their highly polluting characteristics. The Government aims to develop technical regulations related to the management of specific and hazardous wastes, in accordance with the criteria established by Community regulations. The Law defines the respective roles of various actors responsible for waste management. The distribution of competences between the Government and the communes is developed establishing the obligation for the communes to provide the selective collection service for urban solid waste. The selective collection service covers the collection of recyclable waste in separate containers and the installation of communal utensils that complement the system. The Law with the purpose of progressively promoting the reuse and recycling of waste, establishes other programmes and systems for selective collection, and the obligation of carrying out the necessary studies to establish a strategy aimed at reducing biodegradable waste to be eliminated in accordance with the European Union. The National Waste Plan is the basic document that defines the fundamental principles of the modern waste management of the Principality of Andorra and the strategic instrument that guides the Government's waste policy.