The Federal Environment Ministry maintains the obligation to recycle phosphorus from 2029. The “deadline from 2029 for phosphorus recovery from sewage sludge” is an “indispensable step towards a more sustainable and import-independent economy,” says a letter from Environment Minister Carsten Schneider (SPD) to the President of the German Association for Water Management, Uli Paetzel.
At the end of December he contacted the minister and asked that the legal requirements for phosphorus recovery be postponed by ten years. They are neither technically nor organizationally feasible.
This caused great unrest in the industry. The waste association BDE viewed the letter as a “fatal signal for environmental and resource protection in Germany”. The industry network “German Phosphor Platform” warned that a postponement of the deadline would weaken trust in legal requirements and called for clear transitional solutions with incentives for municipalities, operators and investors.
Phosphorus is a critical raw material that, as a key plant nutrient, plays an important role as a fertilizer in agriculture. Natural reserves in Morocco, China and Egypt are running out. A quarter of Europe’s phosphorus imports come from Russia, a dependency that the EU wants to break away from. The recovery of phosphorus from domestic sewage sludge is considered the method of choice. From 2029, the sewage sludge regulation provides for the recovery of phosphorus from wastewater.
Technical difficulties inhibit recovery
However, it is foreseeable that by 2029 only a third of the 1.3 million tonnes of sewage sludge dry matter will be recycled each yearwhich is subject to the recovery obligation.
“Despite early technology development, there are still major technical difficulties with regard to the different processes” said DWA President Paetzel. As a result, there was a lack of experience with large-scale technical processes and therefore a reliable basis for decision-making for investment strategies for many waste disposal companies.
In his reply letter on Friday, Minister Schneider announced that the Environment Ministry was examining a “fund concept”. It stipulates that sewage sludge ash may continue to be deposited after 2029 if sufficient recovery capacity is not available. This is linked to a tax that is intended to promote the recovery of phosphorus.
So that such an interim solution is needed for as short a time as possible and does not result in a permanent special levy, “I would like to ask you to continue to constructively support your members in the rapid implementation of phosphorus recovery,” Schneider wrote to the association president.