Attempt to weaken farm water pollution rules foiled in Parliament committee vote.
The EEB is Europe’s largest network of environmental organisations with 141 members in over 30 countries.
It would be absurd to loosen them given the unavoidable reality is that there are limits to how much manure plants can absorb.
If too much is spread as a fertiliser it will run off fields and lead to more water pollution.
Overuse of fertilisers has been linked to spikes in air pollution, and the cost of cleaning up polluted water could see the price of drinking water shoot up in the coming years as authorities have to cough up more to make it safe to drink.
[2 & 3] “While the MEPs who want to weaken the rules might have made environmentally-noble sounding claims about wanting to help farmers exploit the potential of recycling animal waste and recovering nutrients from it, this is nothing short of green-washing and their real motivation is to pave the way for more investment in the livestock and dairy sectors.
Factsheet: promoting nutrient recovery & reuse: nitrogen pollution & farming Size : 408.25 kb Format : PDF Preview Briefing ahead of fertilisers regulation – IMCO vote 13 July Size : 305.13 kb Format : PDF Preview
[1] MEPs on Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) committee voted on amendments tabled by Dutch MEP Jan Huitema that seeks to use the current revision of the Fertilisers Regulation to amend how manure is defined in the Nitrates Directive through the back door.
The proposed amendments to the Nitrates Directive would make it possible for processed manure to be applied above the environmental safety threshold of 170 kg N/ha in water polluted areas thus significantly weakening the possibility of reducing water pollution to safe levels.
Exceeding sustainable limits of manure is not circular and leads to leakages which are environmentally harmful.