The waste managementt is changing and growing throughout Italy, with companies in the sector now called upon to invest in innovative technologies for recover waste and transform them into energy, fuel, new materials and much more. To reveal it is WAS Report, the WAS – Waste Strategy annual report, the think tank on the waste and recycling industry of Althesys, according to which the new multiutilities are increasingly forging alliances with oil companies or chemical multinationals and expanding their business perimeter in constant growth. To give some data, in 2019 the 120 largest Italian companies in the waste sector (collection, treatment, disposal and selection of urban waste) recorded a monstrous production value, equal to 11,7 billion euros, with an increase in managed waste (+6,4% to 26,5 million tons) and investments (+4,1% to 535 million euros), compared to 2018.
THE TOP 120
The Top 120 – public and private that they cover 56% of the Italian Municipalities, serve about 70% of the inhabitants and collect 76% of municipal waste – they invested 5,7% of their production value, half a point more than the previous year. Even greater is the incidence for treatment and disposal companies, which grow by 12,5%. 60% of the investment was intended for the construction of new plants and the improvement of existing ones.
A fact that is confirmed in this year's Was Report is the heterogeneity of the Italian framework: the gap between the first of the 120 companies by production value (multiutility with around 1,2 billion euros in 2019 in waste alone) and the last (local monoutility with less than 10 million) is in fact very wide. 30% of the Top 120 operate in the North-West areas, 25% in the Centre, 21% in the South and Islands, 18% in the North-East; only 6% are active nationwide. There average separate waste collection increases by 1,7 percentage points, going from 63% to 64,7%, compared to a national figure which was 2018% in 58,1.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
The goal of the Green New Deal is pushing the valorisation of waste a lot from a circular economy perspective: the figure who works in the new utilities involved in the waste management chain, therefore, he is less and less a garbage man and more and more a specialized technician in the selection and valorisation of waste. This is precisely the most dynamic phase, the one that is showing the best results, with the consolidation of various groups active in different phases of the value chain, from collection to recycling.
The 110 major players operating in the sorting of paper, plastic, metals, wood, glass, OFMSW and WEEE, with a turnover exceeding 5 million euros, recorded a value of production of 2,3 billion euros (+4% on 2018), and an EBITDA of 269,5 million (+3% on 2018). 60% of the companies operate in Northern Italy, in particular in Lombardy and Veneto.
RECYCLABLE WASTE: FOCUS
OFMSW (organic)
The management of OFMSW (the material collected from the organic waste collection) is considered strategic and is creating new opportunities thanks to transformation into biogas and biomethane. An analysis of the plant evolution on a sample of 37 plants, representing 45% of the treatment capacity, highlights the progressive abandonment of MBT (mechanical-biological treatment) in favor of composting and integration with the production of biogas and biomethane . At the same time, innovation is making the sector more diversified also in terms of operators, with the intensification of the presence of experimental initiatives in the production of biofuels, hydrogen and bioplastics.
PLASTIC AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
Also for the compartments of pulp and plastics, despite market volatility and geopolitical factors, new perspectives are opening up thanks to the opportunities of chemical recycling and the rethinking of collection models.
According to the WAS the increase in quantities of electrical and electronic equipment and the growing diffusion of batteries and accumulators for numerous applications is also gradually changing the markets for the respective waste. Even the electrification of the automotive industry will open up new scenarios, with the diffusion of new materials and the inevitable increase in volumes.
PHOTOVOLTAIC PANELS
The focus of Althesys is also on the recycling of photovoltaic panels. The end-of-life module management market, still small today, will explode after 2030. The Italian park is relatively old and technological progress accelerates its obsolescence, making the management of photovoltaics at the end of their life crucial. However, the evolution of the market will have to deal with a regulatory framework that is still critical due to legislative stratifications and measures that are not entirely consistent with the issue End of Waste (the recycling process), crucial for the functioning of the supply chain, which is still open.
“Waste management is experiencing a phase of great transformation – he comments the CEO of Althesys Alessandro Marangoni, economist and coordinator of WAS-Waste Strategy –. The convergences developed by utilities with different sectors would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago. At the heart of this change are two elements: on the one hand, innovation, which is transforming the activity of companies from simple waste collection to a material recovery process. This creates new businesses, on which large companies are aiming, as shown by investment data, which is growing despite a very difficult economic situation. On the other, sectoral convergence, which allows the waste management industry to be able to dialogue, much more than in the past, with large industrial realities in the objective of the circular economy".
