Please find attached for your information a draft document on Council conclusions on the Thematic Strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste, prepared for the Council (Environment) meeting on June 27.

The document provides an overview on the Council Member State positions with regards to the Thematic Strategy on Waste. It also gives an overview on the comments that can be expected with regards to the "Proposal for a Revision of the Waste Framework Directive".

In the draft Council conclusion nothing is mentioned directly with regards to the by-product issue - but the relevance of recycling and resource use is pointed out.

The most important comments are the importance of waste prevention (p. 4), the 5-step waste hierarchy (prevention, re-use, recycling, recovery,disposal) as important element, the life cycle thinking approach (need is seen to work further on guidance) (p.5), that landfilling needs to remain one option for wastes that cannot be recycled (p. 6), that further harmonization of definitions in the framework legislation and the daughter directives are requested (p.7) and that the use of Comitology shall be restricted to technical and scientific, non-political issues (p.8).