Push and increase separate waste collection in the large cities of central-southern Italy such as Rome, Naples, Bari, Catania, Palermo, Messina and Reggio Calabria. This is the objective of Conai which, from Naples on the occasion of the Green Med Symposium, announced the extraordinary plan signed with the cities involved. The plan envisages an investment of almost one million euros in the first year alone, for an activity that can extend over several years and which aims to improve the quality and quantity of the separate collection of packaging waste. According to the numbers reported, 30 percent of the inhabitants of the five regions involved (Lazio, Campania, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily) live in the seven cities involved in the plan, equal to approximately 6 million inhabitants out of 18 million.
“These seven municipalities produce 30 percent of the waste produced in the five regions – explained Ignazio Capuano, president of Conai – and therefore intervening in these cities can mean an improvement in the interception rates of packaging waste and its recycling , at a national level. Europe presents us with increasingly challenging objectives, but above all it is the planet that asks us for a serious and concrete commitment to further improve our circularity results”. The objective of the plan is to bring the waste separation percentages of the regions involved, currently between 51 and 58 percent, closer to those of the Central-Northern regions. “The economic investment is important – highlighted Fabio Costarella, deputy director of Conai – and will serve both for the planning and training of operators, as well as for the product analyzes and communication campaigns necessary to inform and involve citizens”. In the first year, Conai’s plan will involve over one million two hundred thousand inhabitants and, in the cities of Rome, Naples and Palermo, it will proceed through municipalities. The project, shared with Anci, also involves all the supply chain consortia of the Conai system and is supervised by the Ministry of the Environment.
The first step will be a process of mapping the critical issues with timely product analyzes and assessments of the performance of the territory. Subsequently, an analysis of costs and needs will be carried out for each Municipality, planning implementation models and sizing of services based on specific needs. In the Municipalities involved, the objective for Rome is to go from the current 45.8 percent of collection to 47.6 percent; for Naples from 40.4% to 43.1%; for Bari from the current 40 to 45.5 percent. The growth margins expected in smaller and less complex cities are higher: in Reggio Calabria the aim is to go from the current 41 to 55 percent; in Catania from 22 to 35 percent; in Palermo from approximately 15.1 to 27 percent; in Messina, which today is at 53.4, the objective is to break through 60 percent and reach 63.
“In Catania we experience a strong condition of discomfort because we started late – said the mayor, Enrico Trantino – because we don’t have composting plants and in Sicily there are no waste-to-energy plants for the construction of which the time horizon is at least 3-4 We have been trying to reverse the trend with a cultural project for years and I must say that schools are quite fertile territory.”
