For urban waste, the ecological premium is coming: those who recycle a little better, limit waste and throw away garbage in a more rational way, making collection easier, pay less. So, stop to TARI as we know it: an all-inclusive tax linked to the square meters of our home and the number of occupants. In its place comes TARIP, the “punctual” waste tax. It arrives, in truth, very slowly.
The new Punctual Waste Tax was formally born in 2013 and is spreading with the speed of a timid turtle. There are just over a thousand municipalities that already apply it for a percentage of the population that it doesn't reach 14% of Italian citizens. With yet another embarrassing discrimination between the North, which accounts for 94% of the few adhesions, and the South and Islands, which still count few and sparse debuts: only three municipalities in Sicily, two in Puglia and one in Sardinia in Cagliari.
Yet the mechanism is not so complicated and The advantages are substantial for everyone: for the individual citizen who saves and gets used to a “greener” existence, for the relevant municipal administration that by rationalizing the service (which is generally given in a periodically renewable concession) can limit the operating cost and therefore “file down” the coefficients of the price imposed on users. Price that, it should be remembered, varies from municipality to municipality with even macroscopic differences between the most virtuous municipalities and those that are often unjustifiably inefficient or simply greedy for income.
Let's see how the new mechanism works for the few who already use it. And for all those, hopefully many, who are waiting for its debut.
Technology and good manners
Here are the usual collection baskets, but equipped with a microchip. With a remote scan, the truck that collects the waste reads the small electronic circuit and counts the withdrawals, while the workers verify the regularity of the delivery. Payment is made annually (or in some cases with periodic installments, as happens now) based on a criterion that continues to take into account the surface area of the property and the members of the family unit but ties a significant part of the fee to the proper use of the service.
The new fundamental components of the tariff are in fact linked to a minimum number of "withdrawals" assigned to the user (fixed quote per family unit) with an additional charge (variable quota) on any additional contributions. A method that clearly favors good behavior. In order to save money, the user will be encouraged to adopt a series of measures.
The “tricks” to pay less
First precaution: leave the new "electronic" containers, previously delivered by the service manager, in the collection area only when they are actually full only of the material referring to the single colour of the container (wet, plastic, metal, undifferentiated and any other types).
Second tip: limit as much as possible the generation of waste. Those who have a lawn or a garden will save by using, for example, organic waste with a composting device. Those who go to the supermarket will save by bringing some cloth bags from home, to reuse.
Plastic bottles of mineral water can really be replaced in many cities by small purification plants that will finance themselves with the savings from the lack of disposal. Let us remember, in this regard, that even in many urban centers thewater it is absolutely healthy and can be made pleasant even with simple filtering devices for taps (or with simple filters to be inserted into jugs) that we only need to take care to replace periodically.
Obstacles to the new TARIP mechanism
A relatively simple operation in municipalities that already have “door to door” collection with containers referring to the individual family unit. Definitely more difficult and complex in situations (many large urban centres but not only) where waste disposal and collection are carried out using large “bins” along the streets, which do not refer to the individual property or the individual condominium.
In these cases the solution could be the opening mechanism of the large containers with electronic cards personnel authorized to count the waste. This is a complex operation, especially in large urban centers (such as Rome) where waste collection continues to suffer from major problems in its basic organization.
