On the eve of the European Week for Waste Reduction (SERR), the largest call-to-action in Europe to create greater awareness about the excessive quantities of waste produced which kicks off on Saturday 22 November, the situation in Italy is more critical than ever, but no one seems to notice it.
After, in recent days, Assorimap, the national association representing private companies that recycle or regenerate 90% of plastic waste arriving from national separate waste collection, announced the closure of the plants due to a serious competitiveness crisis and the lack of government measures to save the sector, the first – serious – consequences are visible.
The situation concerns the whole of Italy, but it is in Sardinia and especially in Sicily that we are beginning to face brutal reckonings with serious inconveniences.
Why has it come to this?
Producers of packaging and other plastic objects are, at present, more convenient to buy virgin raw materials imported from outside the EU (first of all coming from China), than purchasing that resulting from recycling operations.
According to Assorimap data, companies’ turnover has lost 30%, due to energy costs – the highest in Europe – and the unsustainable competition from extra-EU imports of virgin and recycled plastic at rock-bottom prices.
For this reason, the association had sent the Government a request to advance the mandatory content of recycled plastic in packaging to 2027 and the recognition of carbon credits for those who produce secondary raw materials, in addition to the extension of white certificates, greater controls on the traceability of imports and effective sanctions. For now there is only a new meeting of the sector associations at the Mase scheduled for Tuesday 25 November.
What is happening in Sicily
Here many municipalities have issued ordinances to slow down the collection of plastic, while many of the storage facilities have already closed or have stopped accepting material from separate waste collection, creating management problems and “serious risks” in terms of hygiene and health and risks linked to fires and explosions, as reported by Anci Sicilia.
During the meeting held in recent days at the Energy Department, with the presence of the councilor Francesco Colianni, the general director Arturo Vallone, the presidents of the Sicilian SRRs and the representatives of Corepla, the seriousness of the situation was confirmed, exacerbated by the historic lack of plants in the regional territory. Corepla has illustrated the temporary measures adopted to increase storage capacity and avoid saturation of collection centers, but the alarm remains high.
The problem, recognized as national and structural, takes on even more serious contours in Sicily. The councilor guaranteed that the issue will be brought to the competent Ministry to identify shared extraordinary solutions.
But this remains a serious situation, which is paradoxical, also because – at the same time – the textile waste sector also presents structural criticalities that require immediate intervention to avoid further management and economic burdens for local authorities.
