Collection and treatment of waste – Permit

General information

Who collects or treats waste must apply for a permit for his or her activity.

The following persons do not need a permit:

• Persons who treat only waste accumulated in their own company
  (Exemption: incineration and depositing are subject to approval.)
• Persons offering products on a commercial basis and either taking back wastes from such products or from equivalent products for collection and transfer to an authorised waste collector or an authorised operator of waste treatment facilities or conducting preparation for re-use
  (These exemptions do not apply where the waste taken back is hazardous and the quantity of the hazardous waste taken back is disproportionately larger than the quantity of the products offered.)
• Carriers, if they merely transport waste on behalf of the waste owner
• Persons applying non-hazardous waste to the surface of the soil for the benefit of agriculture or ecology
• Municipalities and associations of municipalities, where they are required by law to collect and remove non-hazardous wastes
• Holders of an equivalent permit from an EU Member State or from another country which is a signatory state of the EEA Treaty
  (The permit has to be presented to the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology before starting the activity.)
• Collection and recovery systems
• Landfill owners, with respect to the takeover of waste for which the owner of the landfill notifies declassification
• Universities, technical research institutes and persons who develop or test waste treatment facilities on a commercial basis, for trial and test purposes
• Persons who treat waste in an approved trial operation (e.g. according to the test operation permit of the testing facility)
• Persons, who collect other peoples' waste on occasion of a commercial activity that is not aiming at the collection of waste e.g. repairing, maintenance work, gardening, demolition or excavation work, and who traceably hand over the waste, that was generated in the course of the execution of the assignment, to a person authorized to collect or treat waste
• Property managers or building managers, whose activity is not aiming at the collection of waste and who traceably hand over other peoples' waste that was generated in the course of the execution of the activity to a person authorized to collect or treat waste.

The competent authority may impose conditions and obligations and set deadlines when granting the permit for the collection and/or treatment of waste.

Under certain conditions the competent authority can ex officio revoke the permit for the collection and/or treatment of waste. In serious cases the original official permit (Erlaubnisbescheid) may even become invalid.

Enterprises affected

The provisions apply to enterprises collecting or treating waste (and to persons offering the collection or treatment of waste to a larger group of people), except for the activities mentioned under "General information".

Requirements

The following requirements must be fulfilled to be granted a permit:

• The type of collection or treatment is in line with the legal objectives and principles, the public interest is not impaired, and the type of collection or treatment is appropriate for the relevant waste
• Storage and treatment of hazardous waste in a suitable, approved facility is ensured
  • In any case a waste collector of hazardous waste must have suitable, approved temporary storage facilities and a person undertaking the treatment of hazardous waste must operate an appropriate, approved treatment system for hazardous waste. This does not apply to operators of waste treatment facilities who lawfully carry out remediation measures on the spot, such as the removal of asbestos, soil vapour extraction or groundwater purification
  • If necessary, the authority can request persons treating non-hazardous waste to furnish proof that he/she has suitable, approved treatment facilities.
• Proof must be furnished of the technical qualifications and the abilities required for the collection or treatment of the waste for which the application for a permit is filed.
• There must not be any doubts as regards the reliability with respect to the activity to be practised.

The permit will be totally or partially revoked if one of the above-mentioned requirements is not satisfied.

The official permit may become invalid if

• the proof of the technical qualifications and abilities or
• the information concerning reliability (in the application for the permit)

is false.

Deadlines

The application for the permit has to be filed prior to the start of the activity. Usually the activity may be started only after the decision concerning the permit has become effective.

Competent authority

• The Provincial Governor^{German text} in whose Federal Province the person collecting or treating the waste is established.

If the establishment of the person collecting or treating the waste is not based in the federal territory, and if either the treatment is performed in a mobile treatment plant or a permitted treatment takes place on the spot, competence rests with the Provincial Governor in whose Federal Province the mobile treatment plant is first to be established or the waste is to be treated on the spot. The competence for the collection rests with the Provincial Governor in whose Federal Province the waste is first to be collected.

Procedure

The person collecting or treating the waste applies for a permit for his/her activity and, for this purpose, submits the application and the required documents to the competent authority.

After that, the competent authority checks the application. If the requirements have been fulfilled, the permit is granted for specific types of waste and waste treatment procedures, if necessary subject to compliance with certain arrangements, conditions and deadlines.

Required documents

The application has to comprise the following:

• Personal data
• Information about the type of wastes to be collected or treated
  (If someone wants to collect/treat all waste types from a waste type pool published with regulation, it is not necessary to list all waste types of the waste type pool individually. It is sufficient if the application refers to the waste type pool.)
• Narrative description of the type of waste collection or waste treatment, including explanation showing that the collection and treatment of the waste will be performed in an environmentally compatible, careful and proper way, thus ensuring that they will not impair the interest of the public
• Information about the technical qualifications and the abilities required for the collection or treatment of the waste for which the application for the permit is filed
• Information concerning reliability, in particular up-to-date extract from criminal record and extract from the register of administrative penalties or confirmation from the competent administrative penalty authority
• Explanation showing that the waste is stored, or intermediately stored, in appropriate, approved storage or intermediate storage facilities
• Explanation showing that the waste is treated in appropriate, approved treatment facilities or at a place which is suited for this treatment

Costs and fees

Costs depend on the various ordinances on levies and fees. Please ask the competent authority in advance.

Legal bases

sections 24a, 25a of the Abfallwirtschaftsgesetz (AWG)

Link to form

A special Excel file and a form are available to registered persons at edm.gv.at (→ BMK)^{German text} for the preparation of the application for permission.

Entrepreneurs registered in the Business Service Portal USP have the possibility to use edm.gv.at (→ BMK)^{German text} and many other online procedures^{German text} with one single logging into the USP. More detailed information on registration in the USP is available in the online guidance on USP registration^{German text}.