Waste management is a field regulated by international, national and regional and local authorities:
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On a European level, the directive that establishes how to manage the member countries' waste is the Waste Framework Directive. Among other matters, this directive establishes that 100 % of waste must be treated, in keeping with the following management hierarchy:

- The Spanish state, for which the basic legislation on waste is Law 22/2011, of July 28th on waste and polluted soil, that transposes the Directive 2008/98/CE. Among other matters, this law prescribes that waste producers must take responsibility for managing it via two options: participating in an industry funded system (SIG in Catalan) or paying the public systems the management costs.
- The 2nd combined national plan on waste 2008-2015 (II PNIR), passed by the Council of Ministers on September 26th 2008, covers the aims of prevention, recycling, other forms of recovery and disposal of waste, and the means to do so.
- The Order in Council 1/2009 of July 21st approved the consolidation of the Law on waste, as modified by the Law 9/2011 of the promotions of economy, of December 29th.
- Catalonia has its own waste management plans, where its waste management system is regulated and local authorities in charge of collection and treatment are coordinated.
Those plans and programs are based on the European waste hierarchy and in principles such as encouraging sustainable consumption and the reduction of waste, applying preventive measures, introducing selective collection of organic waste throughout Catalonia, boosting the efficiency of selective collection, treating the refuse fraction (everything that is not sorted on collection), and reducing journeys for waste by reorganizing the current routes.