The CDS returns to the importance of the petrochemical sector for Ferrara and above all to the need for its relaunch through a “National Center for integral plastic recycling”. A center that should have its headquarters in the city of Este given that “the ‘Giulio Natta’ Research Center and the Ferrara Petrochemical Center are once again recognized as a point of reference, not only nationally, in the world of plastics”. In fact, last May 13th, the “Just Transition” award released by ASviS for Sustainable Development was awarded to the research center “it is dedicated to those who are committed to transforming society, with projects and actions that are attentive to the environment and to people and the technology of molecular plastic recycling”.
“Unfortunately – writes the CDS board -, as we all know, even this further recognition will not be sufficient to produce concrete effects on the city’s petrochemical industry which will have to ‘settle’ for a relaunch entrusted to the reduction of water withdrawal from the Po which we certainly believe is necessary but certainly not sufficient to relaunch a strategic area for national chemistry”.
They underline that “the path for the molecular recycling of plastic in Ferrara was effectively interrupted with Eni’s choice to close an essential plant for the processing of the so-called pyrolytic oil produced by MoReTec technology (or other similar ones)”. In fact, “without the Porto Marghera plant or its always desired more eco-sustainable alternative (e.g. latest generation electrocracking), the industrialization of MoReTec technology will take place in Germany (Wesseling, a town near Cologne) and not in Italy, with the aggravating circumstance that no think tank will be started to plan the future of chemistry in our country and in our city, but the “so-called relaunch” will be entrusted, as mentioned, to “simple” projects of… frontal bonuses”.
The CDS urges “actions that should be the responsibility of politics and Ferrara would benefit greatly if the opportunities that are within its reach were seized.” Furthermore, “in the midst of the electoral campaign”, “we hope that the theme of sustainable development of petrochemicals rises to the agenda, with the proposal of strategic projects that guarantee the future as happened in the 1980s with the important breakthroughs of polypropylene and not with just short-term management improvements.” “Petrochemistry in Ferrara and in our country – they add – will not have a future (unfortunately the recent information from Brindisi confirms this statement) if it does not start a virtuous cycle of innovations capable of tackling the excessive power of large companies that have enormous “well mouth” and refinery plants, with raw material costs significantly lower than those borne in Italy”.
According to the association “the low costs of the utilities present in the Ferrara petrochemical industry, its large areas already reclaimed, have always been heralded as necessary and sufficient guarantees for the establishment of other industrial entities, perhaps more interested in the development of new technologies and to issues related to green chemistry and sustainability”. However, it seems “useless to recall the issues linked to the European Green Deal and the so-called energy transition which would also require our administration and so-called business incubators to intercept companies already involved in the field of converting plastic waste into secondary raw materials, in fuels and hydrogen, not to mention everything that concerns the capture and conversion of one of the most threatening climate-altering gases such as CO2.
“We at the CDS – they conclude – will continue as we have done in recent years to propose (and allow us) to anticipate solutions to try to safeguard a recognized excellence of scientific research, a production site of strategic importance for the automotive, construction and biomedical and a history often ‘banished’ and exiled beyond the city walls”.
