urner, 1992; Tadhg and Dermot, 2003).
European waste and water management policies were originally
developed to control pollution and protect the environment, which
stimulated infrastructure investment in the waste and wastewater
treatments sectors. Although criticised for its high cost, this succeeded
in reducing concentrations of regulated point-source pollutants. It was
however found that Member States were exploiting inconsistencies
in the legislative text, and that standards set out in the Dangerous
Substances Directive were not being achieved in many instances. Additionally,
evidence of increasing pollution of waters (especially groundwater),
and the recognition of the need to safeguard the ‘ecological
quality’ of waters led to the revision and integration of the existing
fragmented waste- and water-related legislation (listed in Table 1)
into integrated management frameworks taking an ecosystem-based
approach (Kallis and Buder, 2001). The Landfill Directive and the
Water Framework Directive were published in the Official Journal of
the European Community in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Both of
these became European, and hence national law, in 2003