33The Court reached those conclusions on the basis of the following considerations in particular:22 ... the scope of the term “waste” turns on the meaning of the term “discard” (Case C-129/96 Inter-Environnement Wallonie [1997] ECR I-7411, paragraph 26)....27 ... The application of an operation listed in Annex II A or II B to Directive 75/442... does not, of itself, justify the classification of that substance as waste....29 ... In its judgment in Vessoso and Zanetti (Joined Cases C-206/88 and C-207/88 [1990] ECR I-1461, paragraph 9), the Court held that the concept of waste does not exclude substances and objects which are capable of economic reutilisation. In Joined Cases C-304/94, C-330/94, C-342/94 and C-224/95 Tombesi and Others [1997] ECR I-3561, paragraph 52, the Court also stated that the system of supervision and control established by Directive 75/442... is intended to cover all objects and substances discarded by their owners, even if they have a commercial value and are collected on a commercial basis for recycling, reclamation or reuse.30 Neither the fact that the leftover stone has undergone a treatment operation referred to in Directive 75/442 nor the fact that it can be reused thus suffices to show whether that stone is waste for the purposes of Directive 75/442.31 There are other considerations which are more decisive.32 At paragraphs 83 to 87 of the judgment in [Joined Cases C-418/97 and C-419/97 ARCO Chemie Nederland and Others [2000] ECR I-4475], the Court pointed out the importance of determining whether the substance is a production residue, that is to say, a product not in itself sought for a subsequent use. As the Commission observes, in the case at issue in the main proceedings the production of leftover stone is not Palin Granit's primary objective. The leftover stone is only a secondary product and the undertaking seeks to limit the quantity produced. According to its ordinary meaning, waste is what falls away when one processes a material or an object and is not the end-product which the manufacturing process directly seeks to produce.33 Therefore, it appears that leftover stone from extraction processes which is not the product primarily sought by the operator of a granite quarry falls, in principle, into the category of “[r]esidues from raw materials extraction and processing” under head Q 11 of Annex I to Directive 75/442.34 One counterargument to challenge that analysis is that goods, materials or raw materials resulting from a manufacturing or extraction process, the primary aim of which is not the production of that item, may be regarded not as a residue but as a byproduct which the undertaking does not wish to “discard”, within the meaning of the first paragraph of Article 1(a) of Directive 75/442, but intends to exploit or market on terms which are advantageous to it, in a subsequent process, without any further processing prior to reuse.35 Such an interpretation would not be incompatible with the aims of Directive 75/442. There is no reason to hold that the provisions of Directive 75/442 which are intended to regulate the disposal or recovery of waste apply to goods, materials or raw materials which have an economic value as products regardless of any form of processing and which, as such, are subject to the legislation applicable to those products.36 However, having regard to the obligation... to interpret the concept of waste widely in order to limit its inherent risks and pollution, the reasoning applicable to byproducts should be confined to situations in which the reuse of the goods, materials or raw materials is not a mere possibility but a certainty, without any further processing prior to reuse and as an integral part of the production process.37 It therefore appears that, in addition to the criterion of whether a substance constitutes a production residue, a second relevant criterion for determining whether or not that substance is waste for the purposes of Directive 75/442 is the degree of likelihood that that substance will be reused, without any further processing prior to its reuse. If, in addition to the mere possibility of reusing the substance, there is also a financial advantage to the holder in so doing, the likelihood of reuse is high. In such circumstances, the substance in question must no longer be regarded as a burden which its holder seeks to ‘discard’, but as a genuine product.38 In the case at issue... the only foreseeable reuses of leftover stone in its existing state, for example in embankment work or in the construction of harbours and breakwaters, necessitate, in most cases, potentially long-term storage operations which constitute a burden to the holder and are also potentially the cause of precisely the environmental pollution which Directive 75/442 seeks to reduce. The reuse is therefore not certain and is only foreseeable in the longer term, with the result that the leftover stone can only be regarded as extraction residue which its holder “intends or is required to discard” within the meaning of Directive 75/442, and thus falls within the scope of head Q 11 of Annex I to that directive.’
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