The 16 categories of annex 1 are shown below.

• Q1 Production or consumption residues not otherwise specified below
• Q2 Off specification products
• Q3 Products whose date for appropriate use has expired
• Q4 Materials spilled, lost or having undergone other mishap, including any material, e
• Quipment etc contaminated as a result of that mishap
• Q5 Materials contaminated or soiled as a result of planned actions (e.g. residues from cleaning operations, packaging materials, containers, etc)
• Q6 Unusable parts (e.g. reject batteries, exhausted catalysts etc)
• Q7 Substances that no longer perform satisfactorily (e.g. contaminated acids, contaminated solvents, exhausted tempering salts, etc)
• Q8 Residues of industrial processes, (e.g. slags, still bottoms etc)
• Q9 Residues from pollution abatement processes (e.g. scrubber sludges, baghouse dusts, spent filters, etc)
• Q10 Machining/finishing residues (e.g. lathe turnings, mill scales)
• Q11 Residues from raw materials extraction and processing (e.g. gangue, oil field slops)
• Q12 Adulterated materials (e.g. oils contaminated with PCB's etc)
• Q13 Any materials, substances or products whose use has been banned by law, (e.g. DDT, Aldrin)
• Q14 Products for which the holder has no further use, (e.g. agricultural, household, office, commercial and shop discards, etc)
• Q15 Contaminated materials, substances or products resulting from remedial action with respect to land
• Q16 Any materials, substances or products which are not contained in the above categories

The list is obviously exhaustive, and both this and the definition have caused problems for the re-cycling industry. The question arises as to what exactly constitutes "discarding":

"Any substance or object in the categories set out in annex 1 (of the directive) for which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard"

Originally the term disposes was used, and annex 1 was originally developed to determine whether or not an item had or hadn't been discarded. But currently the annex merely lists categories of materials that can be considered as waste. So there is still some ambiguity, and the actual directive still defines materials as wastes, irrespective of the fact that they may be re-cycleable.