While the European Union has numerous waste rules, the Waste Directive approved Dec. 12, 2008, after three years of debate, amendment and compromise by the European Parliament and Council is the backbone legislation on waste, Hartmann said. It now must be transposed into national laws by the EUs 27 member states over the next two years. The deadline for member states to adopt laws and regulations to comply with the directive is Dec. 12, 2010.

One critically important new definition, said Hartmann, covers recycling. Recycling means any recovery operation by which waste materials are reprocessed into products, materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes. It does not include energy recovery and the reprocessing into materials that are to be used as fuels or for backfilling operations.

Underlying the new scheme is a five-step waste hierarchy. This is the priority order, Hartmann said. First is waste prevention. Second is preparing waste for reuse. Third is recycling. This, he noted, means regeneration of waste oil to produce base oils. Fourth is recovery, which includes energy recovery. This lower priority includes conversion of waste oil to fuel. And last is disposal.

The priority given to recycling waste oil has increased, Hartmann emphasized. Under the new five-step hierarchy, recycling to base oil is prioritized over energy recovery, or burning.

There are several other key differences between earlier EU rules for waste oil disposal and the new directive, Hartmann noted. Under the old rules, states had to ensure safe collection and disposal of waste oils. Now, states must ensure that waste oils are collected separately.

Previously, Hartmann continued, the rules just prohibited mixing waste oils with PCBs. Now, no hazardous waste can be mixed with any other category of hazardous waste or with any other waste.

Another new provision allows member states to apply measures such as technical requirements, producer responsibility, economic instruments or voluntary agreements for the purposes of separate collection of used oils. In addition, Hartmann said, member states may restrict the shipment of waste oils from their territory to incineration facilities, in order to give priority to used oil rerefining.

Total lubricant demand in the 27 EU member states is about 5.7 million tons per year, said Hartmann. Of this total, about half is deemed collectable as waste oil. Total waste oil actually collected is 2 million tons per year. Of this, 1.1 million tons is now burned, 700,000 tons goes to rerefining, and the remaining 200,000 tons goes to other or unknown uses.

Total rerefined base oil production in the EU today is about 500,000 tons, a bare 8 percent of lube consumption.

But, said Hartmann, if all of the used oil is properly separated, 2.6 million tons could be collected, and fully 2 million tons could go to rerefining. By 2020, EU rerefiners could be producing 1.3 million tons of rerefined base oils, a healthy 23 percent of lube consumption (assuming demand is unchanged). Technically, we can do this, asserted Hartmann. But it will depend on how the directive is implemented.

Certainly, he predicted, the directive will result in collection of more and better quality used oil, and increasing volumes of rerefined base oils, including premium quality stocks. And some member states will increase their financial or regulatory support of the rerefining industry.

But, Hartmann cautioned, the directive may be both an advantage and a burden to the EUs lubricants industry. It does not automatically create a level playing field, and implementation into national laws will surely take longer than anticipated.