Wood recycling, Italy beats all EU targets
Rilegno Report: 67.14% of packaging released for consumption will be recycled in 2024. Semeraro: 'Recycling and reuse are an industrial lever for the future of our sector'
3' min read
3' min read
It is not only a question (although very important in itself) of environmental sustainability: the integrated system of reuse and recycling of wood in Italy is "an industrial lever for the future of our sector", observes Nicola Semeraro, president of Rilegno, the national consortium that deals with the collection, recovery and recycling of wood packaging, established in 1997 following the entry into force of the Ronchi Decree.
A defence against price fluctuations
.Faced with an increasingly unstable economy and wood raw material prices that have undergone continuous and significant fluctuations since Covid, this system has been able to guarantee the availability of wood resources to companies in the supply chain (from the panel industry to the furniture and building industries), placing recycled material on the market in volumes that have been steadily increasing over the last five years, until reaching 1.7 million tonnes of wood sent for recycling in 2024.
A not indifferent contribution, adds Semeraro, for a supply chain that represents one of the excellences of Made in Italy, recognised throughout the world, but which is forced to import almost 80% of the raw material to be processed from abroad every year, thus exposing itself to the price fluctuations we have mentioned, due to a series of environmental (climate warming or parasites) and geopolitical (wars, protectionist policies, etc.) factors.
The numbers of recycling in Italy
.According to the latest report published by the Consortium, 1.75 tonnes of wood was sent for recycling in 2024, of which 45.69% was packaging. The overall recycling rate of packaging is 67.14%, compared to the consumer input of more than 3.4 million tonnes, up 2% on the previous year. Far above the target of 30% by 2030 set by the new EU Packaging Regulation (Ppwr).
Significant is the entry for pallet remanufacturing, an asset now central to the supply chain, with over 945 thousand tonnes of pallets recovered, equivalent to more than 70 million units put back into circulation. An important segment also in view of the targets on reuse set by the new EU Directive on packaging, much contested by several Italian industrial supply chains. "As far as our sector is concerned, reuse with a view to extending the useful life of packaging has already been a reality for some time," explains Semeraro.
