There is a lack of plants and waste tourism towards other Regions is growing. It does not improve the management of garbage in our country, agreeing with those who are fighting to build new plants and finally alleviate the suffering of thousands of citizens. The phenomenon is periodically studied, leaving little satisfaction and a lot of bitterness for a million-dollar business. Fise Assoambiente, the association of waste treatment companies, is once again sounding the alarm especially for Lazio, Campania and Sicily.
Its President Chicco Testa, in an interview to this newspaper, he had already denounced the risks that were being run due to the lack of facilities. Again now there is a report on data from Ispra and from Assoambiente itself, which denounces that in the three aforementioned regions there is a lack of facilities suitable for the context. "Lack of adequate waste recycling systems, absence of energy valorisation even if it is not recyclable, waste tourism towards other Regions, excessive reliance on landfill disposal". This is the summary, not very edifying for those in government of the country who never miss an opportunity to say that Italy is on the eve of a new green deal.
Governor Nicola Zingaretti's Lazio does not come out well from the report, which more than other Regions fuels the phenomenon of waste tourism. The differentiated waste is 46%, but 64% of the wet collected goes outside the Region. Attention: here weighs the organizational breakdown of capital Rome, which in the end is one with the positions of those who are at the helm of the city and oppose the construction of new plants. Ideological prejudices, one might say, where the situation is getting out of hand. Governor Vincendo De Luca's Campania, in turn, is on the verge of emergency.
Collection has improved over the years, but little recycling is done. The mega incinerator in Acerra, managed by A2A, served to overcome the most critical phase of past years, however the regional situation "appears only momentary and decidedly fragile". In an area that produces 439,5 kg of waste per inhabitant per year. The absence of an efficient recycling system downstream of the collections translates into 88,5% of the workforce going to other regions of Italy. Euro outgoing, no doubt about it. The Acerra waste-to-energy plant, among other things, treats about 70% of the waste incinerated throughout the South. And we are two.
Sicily has the “record of landfill and recycling and recovery plants“. As a percentage it means 73% of rubbish in landfills and 22% collected in a differentiated way. On landfills it must be said that Nello Musumeci's center-right council wants to close them and has allocated the first 2,2 million euros, after months spent censoring 551 sites scattered throughout the provinces. An X-ray from FISE, without shadows, which certifies "skyrocketing management costs, inefficiencies and pollution caused by the continuous transport of waste. All in defiance of the circular economy and with the emergency upon us”.
The Italian structural nodes, not regional, mind you, are ahead of everyone. What is still missing is an overview, political and industrial, which has been generating millions of euros in profits abroad for years. The technology has moved ahead of the studies of the 90s on incineration and in Paris, Vienna, they are not dumb enough to keep the plants in the city, which have low environmental impacts, undergo strict controls and help energy regeneration. "If we want to concretely implement the circular economy - comments Chicco Testa - it is necessary to overcome on the one hand the prejudicial approach towards the creation of any type of waste management plant and on the other the mistrust towards the use of products deriving from the recovery of waste that still constrains demand in many cases”. There is always time to correct mistakes.
