Waste: Utilitalia, Italy lacks over 30 plants

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 26 - To achieve the 2035 objectives of the EU package on the circular economy, Italy needs over 30 waste treatment plants, including waste-to-energy plants (to burn non-recyclable garbage and produce energy) and plants composting (to transform organic waste into compost fertilizer).

This is what emerges from a study by Utilitalia, the Federation of water, environmental and energy companies.

The current municipal waste treatment plants are numerically insufficient and all concentrated in the north, forcing our country to continue waste journeys between regions (with trucks that produce pollution and greenhouse gases) and to make excessive use of landfill disposal.

Without a decisive turnaround, it will be impossible to reach the EU targets, which envisage the achievement of 65% effective recycling within 15 years of the total waste collected and use of the landfill for less than 10%.

Italy lacks facilities to treat 5.7 million tons of garbage a year.

The North is self-sufficient in terms of staff and is in debt of 150 thousand tons for waste-to-energy.

The Center needs to waste-to-energy an additional 1.2 million tons and to treat the same number of staff.

The South has an energy recovery requirement of 600 thousand tons and 1.4 million tons for the workforce.

For Sicily, the deficit is 500,000 tons for incineration and 600,000 tons for personnel.

Sardinia is self-sufficient for staff, but has a deficit of 80 thousand tons for waste-to-energy.

"Without anaerobic digestion and waste-to-energy plants - explains Filippo Brandolini, vice president of Utilitalia - it is not possible to close the waste cycle from a circular economy perspective. While the recycling industry denounces the lack of outlets for waste, they continue to hypothesize scenarios with future technologies that are not currently available or immediately applicable on an extended scale, and a problem that can no longer be objectively postponed is referred ".

(HANDLE).