Confirmed the excellent trends in consumption, production and exports, the Italian industry of appliances and to the professional appliances (respectively 16 and 5 billion euros in turnover, very high export quotas) celebrated a particularly positive year yesterday, November 5, in Milan on the occasion of the traditional public assembly. Chaired by Paolo Lioy, Apply Italy, the association that brings together the industries in the sector, has officially presented the two proposals which, as we anticipated on 30 September on Firstonline, have the dual purpose of increasing sustainability and protecting an industry of Made in Italy excellence.
Applia has officially asked the government in collaboration with Aires, the association of specialized retailers in the sector, for the launch of a Scrapping Bonus also for household appliances such as TVs and decoders and a contribution for the Transition 4.0 of catering, to facilitate the purchase of new connected equipment by restaurateurs.
Bonuses and labels, gigantic energy savings
The president, Paolo Lioy, made these requests on behalf of the associates, recalling the consistent energy saving achieved in the decades since the mandatory application of European energy labels. Why request a scrapping bonus given that, in any case, the sales of 2020 and above all of the current year are going well, with double-digit increases?
“With the new energy labels, even stricter than the previous ones, a class A washing machine saves over 15 kWh/year compared to a class B one; while a 10-year-old model required 20 kWh more. And, again - Lioy underlines - in 20 years the consumption of the average refrigerator which, by the way, is always on, has dropped by 80 percent. The Bonus inspired by the highly successful one of TVs and decoders has the first aim of promoting the renewal of a fleet of household appliances, such as the Italian one, which is particularly obsolete and with very high consumption, which would be reduced by over 280 kWh each year. Furthermore, as many as two thirds of the old decommissioned appliances disappear, i.e. they do not enter the virtuous circuit of the WEEE system”.
Bonus TV, all TVs to WEEE
A virtuous example is instead the one described in great synthesis to the Assembly by Andrea Scozzoli, president of Aires, the association that brings together consumer electronics and household appliances retailers. “The bonus for the scrapping of TVs and decoders takes place with the 100% recovery of the old appliances, all paid for by our members, and the appliances are conferred and sent to the WEEE circuit for regular disposal. A good example which, I would like to underline, is the rule for all physical points of sale, whose role in correct disposal is certainly safer and more proven than that of online platforms".
The other objective that Applia Italia has set out to achieve with the two projects presented to the public assembly is particularly relevant, that of supporting a Made in Italy agattacked by growing environmental dumping, for which a carbon tax has been proposed by parliamentarians concerning appliances from non-European production sites that use the most polluting fuel, coal.
Tax the environmental dumping of coal
A very heavy environmental dumping because it keeps the production costs of the competitors very low compared to the European ones. A carbon tax which, however, should also be applied to production sites throughout Eastern Europe, which burn coal and which have been using gigantic European funds stolen from other European countries for decades, which use alternative or less polluting energies.
It should be noted that the very mysterious owner of mines and coal processing and distribution industries is a Czech billionaire, David Kretinsky, owner of a large portion of French and Eastern European publishing, 41% of Metro, of which MediaMarktSaturn belongs Retail Group which owns the French Fnac and Darty and other major European retailers. The European coal king owns several polluting coal mines in Germany too, 41% of Eustream, the important gas pipeline that crosses Ukraine from Russia and arrives in Slovakia. Today, his company EHP is the largest energy group in Central Europe, and Kretinsky has shown complete indifference to the divestment of his huge coal assets.
This is why Applia Italia's proposals take on such an evident importance: to defend and promote the ecological energy transition and, at the same time, the Italian domestic technology industry, even in the face of the growing costs of raw materials and vitally important components, such as chips. Defending the excellence of Made in Italy also means defending another great Italian specialization, the components that count world-class companies, with sites in Italy, to which multinationals have been turning for many decades if they want to produce high-quality appliances and excellent reliability.
One of the most cited examples today, due to the international awards and recognitions it has received, is ROLD, 50 years of components, now all connected, of mechatronics, electronics and materials for the major global manufacturers of household appliances, in Europe, China and America. As for the amount of the Scrapping Bonus for household appliances, Applia Italia's proposal provides for a discount equivalent to 20% of the value of the appliance for a maximum of 100 euros to replace an energy-intensive appliance more than 10 years old.
