What are Salvini and Di Maio arguing about when they talk about waste and waste-to-energy plants? Don't they remember that in March 2009 Silvio Berlusconi premier, inaugurating that of Acerra, claimed the presence of the State? “The State has gone back to making the State”, he said, and pressed the button that set in motion a plant costing 750 million euros. Nine years later, Di Maio he remembered that the Campania it is his land and that says no to new incinerators. The opposite of what his ally Salvini would like. All together they participate in the Council of Ministers in the most difficult Region ever. And as happened with Berlusconi, they will have to explain to the Italians whether or not the state exists, in case of another garbage crisis.
Separate collection and recycling of waste are known objectives, but until we arrive at a serious model of circular economy, an industrial management project, we need to keep several structures together: waste-to-energy plants, recovery plants, collection centres. The effects of coexistence in advanced societies can only take on a civil and industrial value if there is a clear strategy of where we want to go. AND the circular economy. Europe has indicated it for some time and is looking to 2030 with a series of objectives. For this reason perhaps the time has come to recognize that Italy has not yet taken the right and participatory path in order not to remain in the queue.
The 21 Wast Strategy report of the Althesys Agency will be presented in Rome next Wednesday 2018 November. The advances that have been circulating these days, without either Salvini or Di Maio caring, tell precisely of the permanence of a strong Italian structural deficit in waste management. Once he pointed the finger at Naples and Campania, but that hasn't been the case for some time now. There are quality tips here and there, but no Minister or Governor can say he's in place. The South continues to pay very heavy prices, because it recovers little. Far below the thresholds indicated by the EU, which costs fines and infringement procedures. Everywhere in the North and South there are landfills, largely outlawed, due to a fine of more than 200 million euros by judgment of the European Court of Justice. Even the governor of Campania De Luca says he does not want new incinerators, but despite the Acerra plant, his region is no stranger to the origin of the fines and the deficit in separate waste collection.
In order not to explode again – says the former Minister of the Environment, Corrado Clini – Campania pays 200 euros per ton for waste that is transported to waste-to-energy plants in the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. There they know how to exploit everything that comes along and produce and sell electricity. That ability that we do not see. In order not to wrong Campania alone, let us remember that also Rome – governed by the Five Stars – it has no plants capable of disposing of what it produces. The project to take waste away from Lazio has not taken off and no one dares to say that the city is clean. The Five Stars focus on collection, but the targets are low and the fight against waste-to-energy plants or the transfer of waste to similar plants risks turning into a shocking boomerang.
That no to new plants, therefore, does not leave us calm. Waste crises are cyclical. On average, 120 kilos of rubbish produced per inhabitant still end up in landfills. Germany recycles and recovers two thirds of the 600 products per inhabitant. A huge structural and economic gap compared only between two countries. Scattered across Europe, however, there are 350 waste-to-energy plants and incinerators which together treat 30% of the waste produced. Italy today is not in a position to compete with Finland, Sweden, Austria, Luxembourg, Denmark. It is evident that it does not have a medium-term strategy that will make it rise in the rankings and link waste management to energy production and use. Wealth for the country.
