For over twenty years we have read every day in the pages of newspapers about situations of degradation present in various regions of our country, due to the inability to ensure services consistent with the expectations of citizens and businesses, as well as of comparable quality with those provided in Northern European country.
There are many causes, but the main one is to be found in the incapacity of too many public administrations to make almost always unpopular decisions, such as those concerning the location of treatment plants. They are not able to accept the complexity of the decision-making process and face this problem by treating all the aspects in an organic way, with scientific method, attributing a relevant importance to the decision-making process, in the absence of which it becomes very difficult (if not impossible) to realize the indispensable infrastructures to ensure quality services, articulated in a manner consistent with community directives and with the lowest possible environmental impact.
The crux is to face the challenge by rationally and scientifically evaluating the pros and cons of the various possible solutions and understanding the role that one's community can play.
Environmentally effective management must take into consideration
– Wait social
– Wait institutional
- Elements Scientific
- Elements industrial
Starting from the belief that consumption requires solid and innovative industrial processes upstream; both are generators of waste (in greater or lesser quantities depending on their innovativeness) which must be recovered in the form of matter or energy. Therefore, it is not sufficient to add correct individual behaviors to achieve a good RD.
The three fundamental moments to create an integrated waste management system are:
- The commitment of the PA to design the best solutions (consistent with Community Directives and national/regional laws, which are the result of scientific investigations aimed at identifying the best possible solutions to reduce health and environmental impacts);
- The capacity of businesses of the sector to build and manage plants with complex technology (sophisticated industrial system);
- Effective controls by Public Bodies (who enjoy the trust of the citizens/beneficiaries).
We must not ask ourselves if technology is needed, but we must choose the most suitable one, finding a method to build dialogue, starting from the belief that there is a discrepancy between the perception of some social actors and scientific knowledge on the risk associated with the management of installations.
An integrated system aimed at the recovery of materials and energy must be based on reliable (and consolidated) technologies and must develop regulations for environmental and health controls.
The implementation of the decisions taken cannot disregard, as already mentioned, the involvement of Italian and foreign companies capable of realizing, managing and financing the construction of the plants necessary to make the country self-sufficient. However, in order to stimulate them to commit themselves to such demanding undertakings, the conditions must be created which allow them to evaluate the risks. By way of example, without claiming to be exhaustive, I mention a few:
1. to emanate industry standards clear, stable over time and applied quickly and homogeneously;
2. To define a national strategy that by overcoming fragmentation and localism it favors industrial waste management with the aim of allowing the achievement of European environmental targets, making the country self-sufficient and contributing to national economic development;
3. set up a sector authority independent regulator that defines tariffs, standard costs and tender schemes for service tenders;
4. Ban bind for the management of services on at least a provincial scale.
Not all Italian Regions are in an emergency, because some of them, such as Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy, have dealt responsibly and effectively with the crisis situations that arose in their territories more than twenty years ago, intervening both at of planning that favoring the establishment of multi-service companies of adequate size capable of finding managerial, financial and technical resources capable of ensuring their implementation, guaranteeing their territories full self-sufficiency for the next twenty years through an integrated management system of municipal waste.
The choices made over time in Emilia-Romagna have been correct and effective, because they have allowed, through the HERA Group, to:
1. To achieve an integrated system of waste management which tends to go beyond landfills (Hera closed 12 of them from 2003 to 2015).
2. Replace 5 waste-to-energy plants (WTE, Waste to Energy plants) built in the 70s with as many coming into operation between 2004 and 2010, tripling energy generation, increasing the quantities treated by 39% and reducing emissions by 74%.
3. To achieve 7 composting/anaerobic digestion plants (a fourth digester for the production of biomethane is in the authorization phase).
4. Build 6 sorting plants.
5. Modernize or build 28 industrial RS treatment plants.
6. From 2002 to 2015 of reduce the percentage of urban waste disposed of in landfills from 49 to 8,6%, simultaneously raising that treated in waste-to-energy plants from 25 to 37% and raising the recovery/recycling share from 26 to 54%.
7. Certification the amount of differentiated waste collection to effective recovery (over 94% in 2014).
8. to constitute the national leading company in the management of SR and MSW recovery and treatment plants (over 1.000 employees, 83 plants managed, investments exceeding €1.000 million in 13 years).
* The author is the CEO of Herambiente, the largest Italian waste management group
