EU Fertiliser Regulation revision - European essential requirements for organic fertilisers and recovered nutrients

The revision of the EU Fertiliser Regulation, under discussion, will facilitate placing on the market of organic and recycled nutrient products whilst ensuring safety and quality. Read more...

The revision of the EU Fertiliser Regulation 2003/2003, currently under discussion, will widen the scope of the Regulation to include inorganic, organo-mineral and organic fertilisers, organic soil improvers, liming products, growing media, plant bio-stimulant and agronomic fertiliser additives.  This will considerably facilitate the placing on the market both of organic products containing recycled nutrients (e.g. processed biosolids, digestates, composts, biochars) and inorganic recovered phosphate products (e.g. struvite, phosphates recovered from sewage sludge, incineration ash). Fertilising materials which are certified to comply with the new essential requirements outlined in the EU Fertiliser Regulation (minimum nutrient content, quality and safety criteria) will be authorised to be placed on the Internal Market (transported and sold across the European Union), whereas as present such products registered as “fertilisers” in one Member State cannot be exported or require a new registration dossier for sale in another Member State (except in cases where there has been mutually recognised by the authorities of the importing Member State).

The European Sustainable Phosphorus Platform (ESPP) and Fertilisers Europe organised a meeting with participation of the European Commission on 6th February 2014. Stakeholders welcomed the proposal to widen the EU Fertiliser Regulation, because it will enable innovation and flexibility, and facilitate the marketing of new types of products, important both for recycling and recovery of nutrients, and for developing new phosphorus fertilisers for improved crop efficiency or to reduce environmental losses. They underlined the importance of the Regulation to ensure Europe-wide, harmonised, accreditation of innovative recycled nutrient products, so enabling them to be put on the market and traded throughout Europe.

Coherence with other regulations

Stakeholders at this meeting considered important the harmonisation of the Fertiliser Regulation with other regulations. It was noted that clarification is needed regarding the application of REACH (European chemical regulation) for substances leaving the waste status. Confirmation is needed that stable digestates are exempted from REACH (compost is already exempted) and clarification is needed regarding the application of the exemption of certain REACH requirements for “recovered products” (art. 2(7)d of REACH, see SCOPE Newsletter n° 98). The European Sustainable Phosphorus Platform has addressed questions to the European Commission on both of these points, supporting the European and German Biogas Associations’ positions concerning REACH exemption of digestates.
There is also a need for coherence with the Animal By-Products Directive and the Nitrates Directive. In particular, fertiliser products recovered from manures are currently penalised by the limitations for spreading “processed manure” as defined in the Nitrates Directive (see SCOPE Newsletter n° 100). This could be resolved if the criteria defining “mineral fertilisers” under the revised Fertilisers Directive were considered to also define a product as no longer being considered as “processed manure” under the Nitrates Directive.

Accreditation

The EU Commission suggested that a list of accredited organisations, entitled to deliver the “EC” conformity certificate (product conform to the revised EU Fertiliser Regulation criteria = can be sold throughout Europe) will be defined, based on Member State proposals for certification bodies working according to the accreditation principles. This will be particularly important for waste-derived products (recovered nutrient products) as they will be subject to such third-party certification before  allowing their placing on the market. It is also important to improve circulation between Member States of information about non-conform products found on the market in order to ensure that they are withdrawn in a consistent way throughout Europe.

All products marketed under the revised Fertiliser Regulations would have to be identified in one of the different product sub-categories (inorganic fertilisers, organo-mineral and organic fertilisers, organic soil improvers, liming products, growing media and plant bio-stimulators) depending on their nature and characteristics. The choice will be made by the producer, who will have to demonstrate that their product fulfils the quality and safety essential requirements defined for this specified product sub-category.

End-of-Waste

It currently looks likely that European End-of-Waste criteria for composts and digestates (see SCOPE Newsletter n° 99) will not be adopted by the European Commission, but that existing national End-of-Waste criteria would remain in place, and other Member States may develop such criteria.

It was noted that if there are no European End-of-Waste criteria in place, then wastes cannot cease to be waste (under the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC) and will not cease to be waste simply because they respect (revised) Fertiliser Regulation essential requirements: wastes or products from processed waste would thus remain subject to traceability obligations and other relevant waste legislation unless they go through national End-of-Waste Criteria. However it seems that this situation might evolve during the inter-services consultation in view of the adoption of the proposal for a revised Fertilisers Regulation which highly depends on the adoption of this EU End-of-Waste criteria to avoid market fragmentation due to the co-existence of diverging national End-of-waste criteria.

Quality and safety criteria

The EU Commission has circulated for comment (Fertilisers Working Group 17/3/2014) draft quality and safety criteria for the different categories of product to be covered under the recast Fertiliser Regulation. These include proposals for criteria for minimum phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium content, micronutrients, for organic matter and for maximum levels for contaminants (heavy metals, PAHs, pathogens, viable weed seeds, solids such as glass, metal or plastics). See below.

Product physical and handling quality specifications, such as water content and uptake, caking, density, physical resistance (adaptation to spreading equipment), granulometry, will not be defined by the Fertiliser Regulation, but will be left to the market. However, user safety information will be required just as is the case for any product (Classification & Labelling Regulation information about risks such as skin or eye irritation, respirable dust if relevant …).
As explained in SCOPE Newsletter n° 98, cadmium limits for inorganic fertiliser are proposed at 60 mgCd/kgP₂O₅ (with the possibility for Member States to enact lower limits at 40 or 20 mg Cd where their local protection goals  justify it). For other heavy metals, the proposed limits are as follows, with different limits (per kg dry matter) for different product categories because of the different application rates.

If producers of recycled or organic products consider that they would have difficulty meeting the above contaminant limits and that higher levels could be considered for certain products, whilst ensuring consumer safety as a function of product application levels, then they are invited to indicate such points.

Raw sewage sludge

The EU Commission also suggests to exclude “raw sewage sludge” from the recast EU Fertiliser Regulation. Further work will therefore be necessary to define when a product is considered to be sufficiently processed to be certified under the recast Regulation (and not to be excluded): stabilised – dried – granulated sewage sludge? composted or anaerobically digested sewage sludge (digestate)?

It is further suggested to exclude raw manures, except where these are traded. This exclusion enables farmers to reuse their own manures or to maintain local reuse circuits, and should probably be defined to exclude manures where quantities traded (either for free or for payment) are below a certain threshold tonnage/year/producer or where the trade is between nearby farmers. As above, clear exclusion criteria need to be defined.

Further work is probably also necessary to address the question of trace organic contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals, hormones, plasticisers and other organic chemicals. Stakeholders at the meeting organised by ESPP suggested that products should be exempted from testing for such substances where the production process means that they should not be present (e.g. inorganic fertilisers produced from phosphate rock, recycled phosphates from thermal processes such as biosolids incineration) but that other products should be required to demonstrate that any traces of such contaminants do not pose risks for health or the environment through product use as a fertiliser, using a risk assessment based approach and a minimum of testing, in order to guarantee consumer and environmental safety.

It is noted that there are significant sampling challenges for products which may not be fully homogenous, e.g. manure or compost.  Stakeholders emphasised that Fertiliser Regulations should ensure better safety levels than sludge spreading regulations, taking in all cases the most stringent existing regulations in Member States.

NOTE: all information in the above article should be considered as “work in progress” in that the EU Fertiliser Regulation revision is currently in the discussion and preparation phase.

EU Fertilisers Working Group http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/chemicals/specific-chemicals/fertilisers/index_en.htm