Waste, separate waste collection at 66%. Bologna the most virtuous

More than 29 million tonnes of urban waste in 2023, 0.7% more than the year before, in an Italy still marked by some differences in treatment and recycling processes but which sees the gap between the North and the South in terms of separate waste collection narrowing by 4.5 percentage points (10.4 million tonnes on the first front, 73.4% of the total, while the South stands at about 5,2 million tonnes, equal to 58.9%) with the national bar standing at 66.6% of total production, up 1.4 points compared to 2022 (65.2%, while from 2019 the increase exceeds 5%) and with Bologna reaching almost 73%, positioning itself as the first city with a population of over 200,000 inhabitants to exceed the 65% target set, it is worth remembering, by the 2012 legislation.

This is the snapshot taken by the latest edition of the Urban Waste Report by Ispra (the Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), which will be presented today in Rome, in the presence of the deputy minister for the Environment and Environmental Safety, Vannia Gava, and which offers a precise cross-section (see also other article on the page) of the costs associated with urban waste management, a portion of which - despite European diktats - is still disposed of in landfills (15.8% of the total), albeit down by 10.8% compared to 2022, while the overall recovery of packaging waste stands at 84.9% of the total amount released for consumption, with all fractions growing, with the exception of aluminium and glass.

"The report tells of an Italy on the move towards environmental sustainability. The increase in differentiated waste collection and the significant reduction in landfill disposal are results that testify to a concrete commitment towards a circular economy model," Ispra president Stefano Laporta tells Il Sole 24 Ore, who emphasises the progress of the southern regions "that are reducing the gap with the rest of the country, demonstrating that a homogeneous change is possible".

And, in fact, the data collected in the Ispra Report outline, as mentioned, a change of pace in the South in terms of separate waste collection that has reduced the gap, between 2019 and 2023, both with respect to the very virtuous North (from 19 to 14.5 percentage points) and with respect to the Centre (-3.8%), demonstrating that the regions of the South are those that have shown the greatest growth in this area in recent years. At a provincial level, then, all provinces and metropolitan cities have achieved separate collection percentages of over 30%, while on the regional side the highest share is achieved, as was also the case in 2022, by Veneto (77.7%), Emilia-Romagna (77.1%), Sardinia (76.3%), while Lazio (55.4%) Sicily (55.2%) and Calabria (54.8%) occupy the last places in the ranking. Among the municipalities, on the other hand, two-thirds of which are already above the 65% collection target, the highest levels of separate waste collection are observed for Bologna, as already highlighted, Padua, Venice and Milan. The tail-enders, on the other hand, are Naples, Catania and Palermo.

On the other hand, as far as treatment and management are concerned, the recycling percentage of municipal waste stands at 50.8%, up from the year before (49.2%) and above the target of 50% set by the regulations for 2020 (a benchmark that rises to 65%, however, if the 2030 deadline is considered). The increase (1.3%) is mainly attributable to the paper fraction, which recorded a percentage increase of 7.9% (341 thousand tonnes more). Steel (+2.4%), plastics (+1.4%), and wood (+0.8%) also performed well, while glass and aluminium struggled, dropping by 10.8% (248 thousand tonnes less) and 1.5% respectively.