Within a rapidly changing general framework and with various changes underway, one of the open questions to be resolved – for the waste sector – is the coding of one effective strategy with which to identify waste flows and territories exposed to a plant deficit in treatment and/or closing the cycle. And this also for the purposes of correct indication regarding the treatment plants defined as “minimum”.
According to the approach adopted by the Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment (ARERA) with the MTR-2, the plants for the treatment of Residual Urban Waste (RUR) and of Organic fraction (FORSU) are considered essential for the management of the waste cycle and are subject to cost regulation recognized and tariffs which are characterized by incentives consistent with the European waste hierarchy (for further information, please refer to Position Papers 186 and 183).
These systems are very different from those “integrated”i.e. the cycle closing treatment plants included in the scope of the integrated manager’s assignment, as per those “additional”i.e. the remaining treatment and/or cycle closure plants that are not identified as “minimal” and are not “integrated” into management.
The task of carrying out this classification had been entrusted by the Authority to Regions. During the first two years (2022-2023) of application of the ARERA regulations to plants, there was a high regulatory uncertainty. Firstly, not all Regions have complied within the expected deadlines, indicated on 30 April 2022, for the purposes of the previous categorisation. Then, from the beginning of 2023, a series of jurisprudential rulings which have followed one another have heavily called into question the entire matter, starting from the role of ARERA and that – by the latter – entrusted to the Regions (see also Position Paper no. 262). The jurisprudence has not only raised questions about categorization made by certain Regions (Emilia-Romagna, Puglia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia), going so far as to cancel the provisions, but went as far as requesting a rethinking of the entire legislative-regulatory framework underlying the process of identifying the “minimum” systems (as summarized in the following graphic).
Read also: PNRR and waste: from the National Program for Waste Management to the national strategy
Is waste a problem or a resource?
The entire system is currently going through a phase of strong uncertainty. On the one hand, the Resolution 72/2024/R/ref confirmed the deadline of 30 June 2024, set by Resolution 7/2024/R/rif, as the deadline for updating the classification of treatment infrastructures and for transmitting to ARERA the Economic-Financial Planor (PEF) of the systems. On the other hand, the various sentences have affirmed the pivotal role of superordinate planning, as outlined by National Program for Waste Management (PNGR), also for the purposes of identifying “minimum” systems.
Even though it is one of the already approved reforms of National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) for the waste sector, like the National Strategy for the Circular Economy (SEC), the Program has recently been put under observation by Parliament. The Legislator has entrusted the Government – and in particular the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security (MASE) – the task of analyzing the PNGR with ARERA and the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), precisely for the part that pertains to the criteria for identifying “minimum” plants.
These infrastructures are, in fact, essential for close the regional cycles of urban waste management. Management which, as documented several times, has shown notable regional differences in terms of surplus/deficit. Given all these elements, it seems more necessary than ever to rebuild a stable and lasting framework of rules. However, to identify the “minimum” plants, it is necessary to quantify the treatment needs, not only for the RUR or for the organic, but for all waste that presents particular recovery opportunities or disposal criticalitiesincluding those produced by economic activities.
Read also: The organic waste market, between potential and issues to be resolved
For a legal framework on waste that works
To recompose the legal-regulatory framework, it is necessary to reconstruct that common thread which stitches together the territorial and national guidelines, to restore certainty to the rules and a level playing field to market operators. In fact, “minimum systems” are not an end in themselves, but rather the means available of the Regions to secure waste management: a transitional institution to overcome market failures and close territorial gaps. So they go subservient to a strategycodified in the regional and superordinate planning of the country system.
Starting from the provisions of Legislative Decree 201/2022 (TUSPL), the strategy to be adopted requires careful analysis of market conditions where waste treatment takes place. There ratio The underlying aim is to best motivate potential people public interventions which lead to the identification of truly strategic plants. Intrinsically connected appears to be the reconstruction of present and future plant needs, on the basis of “reasonable” forecasts regarding the implementation of the prevention and development policies of new plant capacity.
The Regions, then, have the task of developing this strategy, pertaining to the plant planning – to satisfy present and future treatment needs – which constitutes the quintessence of the regional planning role. MASE is required to monitor the exact quantification of plant requirements, carried out by the Regions, even reaching the rejection of the Regional Plans not complying. Although legitimate under the PNGR, the use of management on a macro-area basis must be subordinated to the reconstruction of plant needs, avoiding that this institution can act solely as a ploy to derogate from the institutional tasks entrusted by the Legislator to the Regions. In fact, each Regional Administration must take responsibility for finding an adequate one treatment location to waste produced in the territory, possibly stipulating agreements with neighboring regions, for the purposes of effective rationalization of the plant park.
In the Position Paper (which you can find below) an initial reconstruction of the balances to cover. If for organic waste, with the exception of Campania, there are no particularly critical situations, the picture relating to RUR, decaying municipal waste and waste is very different. Even though it is one partial estimate and conservative, an overall requirement emerges over 2.8 million tons at a national level, with just 5 Regions able to meet the treatment needs.
As already mentioned, that of “minimal” systems is a useful tool that must be aimed at closing gaps of treatment in areas still lacking. It, therefore, must not become yet another occasion for public intervention in a sector, that of recovery, where jurisprudence is forcefully affirming the centrality of the principle of competition.
If the State, and in particular the MASE, is responsible for defining the strategy, the Regional Administrations are responsible for it the implementation of this path. Essentially, this translates into the reconstruction of regional needs, during planning, and the commitment to identify and support coherent plant responses, also taking into account the production of waste by economic activities.
Policymakers as a whole therefore have the task of make this strategy your ownalso extending it to other strategic waste chains and inserting it into the appropriate regulatory acts, in order to prevent the environmental policy in the waste field is once again (re)written by the sentences of administrative judges.
In fact, the time has come to put an end to the long season of appeals and disputes which has cast great uncertainty on the “rules of the game”, to the detriment of entrepreneurial initiatives and, ultimately, also of the bill that reaches citizens.
We need to act as soon as possible because the June 30 deadline is now upon us.
Here the full position paper
*Edited by Andrea Ballabio, Francesca Bellaera and Donato Berardi
© All rights reserved
