Approaches of European to the regulation of waste management (review)

Introduction. Waste management, including hazardous waste, is one of the issues that are regulated at the level of the European Union with the help of Directives that are binding on all EU member states. Various EU Waste Directives have been approved since 1975, and in 2008 the fundamental EU Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives) was adopted, which describes the waste management policy, defines the classification of waste and methods for their processing and disposal. Material and methods. When preparing the review, legal documents (in particular, Directives, EU Regulations in the field of waste management) and guidelines for practical waste management in the EU were used. Results and discussions. The review presents a methodology for classifying waste, dividing it into non-hazardous and hazardous. Hazard codes and classes, threshold values, i.e. criteria for classifying waste as hazardous. Conclusion. At the stage of analysis of European legislation concerning waste management, the EU pays special attention to the classification of waste as an important tool for differentiating their flow and planning the management of their individual types. The main principle of classification is the differentiation of waste according to the degree of danger to the environment and humans, which allows minimizing their negative impact.