Waste, the Ecomafie commission opens an enquiry on the waste-to-energy plant in Rome. "But new plants are needed"

After the closure of the landfill - which is now being upgraded to ensure the watertight-capping, the biogas capture and leachate treatment plant and the external containment belt (the commission proposes 'a periodic epidemiological survey' to fully understand the effects on residents' health) - for years the collection vehicles dumped waste in the four Tmbs then in operation at Rocca Cencia, Salario and Malagrotta, before sending the matrixes to the waste-to-energy plant at San Vittore and other regions or to landfills. The four Tmbs guaranteed a capacity of over 900,000 tonnes per year, ensuring self-sufficiency in the primary treatment of residual municipal waste.

But since 2018, this plant endowment has progressively thinned: the Tmb Salario closed after a fire that occurred in July 2018; the one at Rocca Cencia, like Salario owned by Ama, suffered two years after a judicial seizure that imposed a 40% reduction in the authorised treatment potential, from 234 thousand to 140,400 tonnes per year; the Malagrotta plants owned by the company E. Giovi closed, again due to fires, in June 2022 and December 2023. The result? 'A drastic reduction of the plant capacity in the territory of Roma Capitale'.

Meanwhile, from 2010 to 2022, total waste production in the city decreased by 12.8 per cent, while separate waste collection increased by about 345,000 tonnes, with the percentage, calculated as a percentage of total waste production, rising from 21.1 per cent in 2010 to 45.9 per cent in 2022. In 2023 the waste produced and collected in Rome was just under 1.6 million tonnes. The estimate for 2024, based on the projection of preliminary data from the first quarter, would foresee an increase of 0.8%, to just under 1.61 million tonnes. Separate waste collection increases further, from 46.7 per cent in 2023 to 47.5 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

The report tries to reconstruct the geography of Roman waste. Organic waste from separate waste collection was mainly handled in plants outside the region: out of 204 thousand tonnes sent to aerobic or anaerobic biological treatment plants by the municipality, 82.1% was treated outside the region (mainly Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Veneto) and only 17.9% in Lazio. As regards undifferentiated waste, the San Vittore incinerator handled more than 289,000 tonnes of municipal waste or waste derived from the pre-treatment of municipal waste, of which an estimated 149,000 tonnes came from mechanical biological treatment plants or from operators serving the municipality of Rome.

More than 101 thousand tonnes of Roman rubbish, treated by the Lazio Tmb, were instead sent to incineration plants located outside the region, mainly in Lombardy (78,802 tonnes) and Emilia Romagna (19,410 tonnes). Waste coming from the Lazio region and disposed in extra-regional landfills, mainly produced in Rome, is quantified at about 82 thousand tonnes in 2022, while the amount of pre-treated municipal waste exported outside the national territory and sent to foreign incineration plants amounts to almost 38 thousand tonnes, 85% of which is destined for the Netherlands and the remaining 15% to Germany.

The burdens of the inability to close the waste cycle are high: if we consider that the average national per capita annual cost of urban waste management is 194.5 euro per inhabitant (2021 figure, in 2020 it was 185.6), an increase of 8.9 euro, and that in Rome this value is 296.2 euro per inhabitant (2021 figure, +8 euro/inhabitant compared to 2020), the expenditure in the capital is about one hundred euro more per inhabitant per year. Added to this is the fact that spending on undifferentiated waste is four times higher than on differentiated waste. Reducing undifferentiated waste is also an economic necessity.

An alert has been sounded on the costs that will burden the accounts for the Jubilee: for Morrone, the risk is that Rome could end up spending between 700 and 800,000 euro per week to take the waste to the Dutch incinerator in Amsterdam for disposal. At the moment, 'two trains a week leave Civitavecchia for the Netherlands at a cost, we are told, of about 200 euro per tonne: if you multiply that by 900 tonnes per train and calculate that every week, two trains leave Civitavecchia and arrive in Amsterdam, it should cost 360 thousand euro a week'. In the Jubilee year the trains should double, "so 720 thousand euros per week for a total cost that, if calculated over 52 weeks of the Jubilee year, is around 37.5 million. I hope there will be a discount because the figure is significant'.

The diagnosis is merciless: 'The plants in the area are completely inadequate to close the waste cycle'. Gualtieri's waste plan aims to remedy this situation of distress. It has moved the 70% separate waste collection target to 2035, envisaging 30 collection centres throughout the capital's territory, and envisages a new plant consisting of two Ama plants for the selection and valorisation of dry fractions (paper, plastic, cans) of 100,000 tonnes per year each, at Rocca Cencia and Ponte Malnome; the replacement of the previous projects for two Ama aerobic composting plants (in 2018), with two biodigesters of 100,000 tons per year each, at Casal Selce and Cesano, for the treatment of organic waste; the new waste-to-energy plant in the Santa Palomba area of 600,000 tons per year for undifferentiated waste. A total investment of 1.3 billion - about one billion for the incinerator and 329 million for the other plants - which, despite the doubts and the desire to investigate the waste-to-energy plant in greater depth, seems to emerge as indispensable, considering also the weakening of Ama's treatment capacity. In obvious difficulty: after five years in the black, the Rome-based waste company with over 7,000 employees closed its 2023 budget with a loss of EUR 46.5 million.