Italy sends almost twice as much waste to recycling compared to the average of other European Union countries. The EU's goal is the near-complete elimination of landfills by 2030.
Italy finds itself Europe's leader in the transition towards a fully circular economy. The good news comes from the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat). Recently published data show Italy to be the European country with the highest recycling rate across all types of waste — both urban, i.e. generated by citizens, and industrial.
In our country, as much as 76.9 per cent of waste is sent for recycling, a rate more than double the European average (which stands at 37 per cent) and higher than that of the other major countries on the continent. France, for example, has reached 54 per cent, the United Kingdom stands at 44, and Germany at 43 per cent.
In terms of the volume of material recycled, Italy is second only to Germany (72.4 million tonnes), with 56.4 million tonnes. The most significant streams for Italy are represented by the so-called traditional recyclables: paper, plastic, glass, metals, wood and textiles, which together reach 26 million tonnes.
A further 14 million tonnes come from mixed waste, 6 million from organic and green waste, and 1.7 million tonnes relate to chemical waste. These figures make Italy a true case of excellence — not only in terms of percentages and volumes, but also at an industrial level: when it comes to the economic value of the entire recycling supply chain, from collection to the industrial production of new goods, our country is second only to Germany, both in terms of turnover and in the number of workers employed in the waste preparation for recycling sector.
In the coming months, a study produced jointly by a number of associations is expected to be published, aiming to take stock of the overall state of the art of the recycling sector, from collection sources to material flows, through to the production of recycled materials. The most recent Waste End report, produced by Symbola and Kinexia, outlined in 2015 a number of possible scenarios for the future of the Italian circular economy, explaining that the ten-year horizon could bring about the end of waste-to-energy plants as a primary waste disposal solution, alongside a significant reduction in landfill use. These are figures that give cause for optimism regarding a different fate for the 38.3 per cent of waste that, still in 2015, was destined for landfill.
Despite the improvements, the Waste End report nonetheless makes clear "the need not only to halt the construction of new plants, but also that of a progressive decommissioning of many plants, which are inefficient both energetically and economically".
The European Parliament, moreover, set this very year the target of achieving by 2030 a 70 per cent recycling rate for urban waste, 80 per cent for packaging waste, and of leaving landfills with only 5 per cent of discarded material. Very ambitious and stringent figures, but Italy appears to be on the right path to achieving them.
