Monday 5 June is World Environment Day. The 2023 edition is mainly dedicated to the fight against abandoned plastic, a theme also at the center of a recent top UN in Paris. Recycling levels worldwide are low. According to the United Nations Environmental Program -UNEP- every year they are spent 113 billion dollari in the fight against wild plastic, compared to the 65 billion to be invested to improve the whole system. Connected to the plastic emergency there are other themes affecting the planet and individual countries: endangered marine species, human nutrition, epidemics, the circulation of microbacteria, water discharges. Environment Day does not neglect them, because the issues are all intertwined. On the waters to be discharged, Europe has a well-defined legislation. What is still not going well, precisely because of the effects that waters have on the ecosystem, is the non-application of those rules in certain countries. And who is on the blacklist? Italy. A few hours before Environment Day (with the bombastic declarations that we will hear in the next few hours) the European Commission has decided to refer Italy to the European Court of Justice. It's not good news for the Meloni government to celebrate the most insidious evil on Earth. The lacuna on the application of the rules is actually dated. No government from 2014 onwards has remembered to apply in whole those rules, nor a sentence of the same year which already sanctioned Italy. The country had "failed to comply with the obligations deriving from the directive concerning the treatment of urban waste water", said the measure. Many urban agglomerations were outlawed and did not guarantee public health.
The environment, proof of government efficiency
Some progress has been made, but between Valle d'Aosta e Sicilia there are five conurbations that still do not respect the rules. Thousands of people live there who we imagine pay the municipal tax on wastewater. “The lack of adequate treatment systems entails significant risks to human health, inland waters and the marine environment in ecologically critical areas where untreated wastewater is discharged”, says the EU Commission. Moreover. "Based on the information provided by the Italian authorities, full compliance with the ruling of 10 April 2014 will not be achieved before 2027." Yet Italy should have guaranteed compliance with the water treatment directive as early as 31 December 1998. In other words: for the EU, Italy deserves fines, given the seriousness and protracted nature of the infringement. Continuing with the reconstruction, in 2018 Italy had another communication on the five agglomerations. No effect. Now says Brussels, you tell us that the anomaly will be resolved in 2027. Europe is in full Green Deal towards zero pollution by 2050. How can these objectives be reconciled with millionaire environmental sanctions? The Ministers of the Environment and Infrastructure they say they are committed to building structures to protect the ecosystem. Do they know about the water disposal infringement? The EU reiterates that the implementation of the standards established in EU legislation are essential to protect human health and safeguard the natural environment. Cities, urban centers, urban settlements, they have to treat wastewater properly and everything in between. In Italy there are more holes and delays on the climate, on hydrogeological instability, on renewables, on agro-energy, on research, which governments punctually say they want to fix. The center-right governs in Palzzo Chigi and in most of the Regions: is it capable of engaging this battle? The criticism of ideological environmentalism fits, but it must be supported by real decisions. “There's no more time, you can't escape from reality. It is an illusion to say the economy first and then the environment” said the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. A clear message to those with the power to act. Giorgia Meloni's government will not last forever and next year we will remember Environment Day again. In the meantime, the citizens of Valle D'Aosta and Sicily will have seen their water disposal tariffs increase. Let's hope not on World Environment Day. After all, they are "wrong" in not respecting it.
