By order of 16 December 1999 the Austrian Administrative Court referred to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling under Article 234 EC certain questions on the interpretation of Council Regulation EEC 259/93 of 1st February 1993 on the Supervision and Control of Shipments of Waste Within, Into and Out of the European Community.
The questions were raised in proceedings between Abfall Service AG (ASA) and the Bundesminister, Jugend und Familie concerning the legality of a decision by which the Bundesminister (Federal Minister) had objected to a shipment of waste planned by Abfall Service. The waste was to be deposited in a former salt-mine at Kochendorf, Germany, to secure hollow spaces (mine-sealing).
The ground of objection was that the planned shipment constituted a disposal operation and not a recovery operation.
The court held that the competent authority of dispatch was competent to verify whether a proposed shipment classified in the notification as a shipment of waste for recovery did in fact correspond to that classification and the deposit of waste in a disused mine did not necessarily constitute a disposal operation for purposes of Council Directive 75/442/EEC of 15 July 1975 on waste.
The deposit therefore had to be assessed on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the operation was a disposal or a recovery operation within the meaning of that Directive. A deposit constituted a recovery if its principal objective was that the waste served a useful purpose in replacing other materials which would have had to be used instead.