Data Card - Cohesion policy and waste. Composting plants to reduce unsorted waste

The manifesto of the 2021 edition of the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR), scheduled between 20 and 28 November, endorsed among others by the European Commission and the Committee of the Regions, invites to adopt the actions and practices aimed at preventing the waste  production "being one of the biggest threats that our society and our planet are facing. The fight against it is again a shared responsibility among all humans''. This is why “the European Week for Waste Reduction challenges you to act together to shape circular communities aimed at preventing waste generation”.

In August 2021, OpenCoesione published for the first time a focus dedicated to the waste financed by the national and European cohesion policies' funds. The dataset collects, at the latest update of the National Monitoring System (referring to 30 April 2021), 2,185 ongoing projects relating to the 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 programming periods, for a total public cost of over 2.27 billion euro (with commitments amounting to 1.18 billion euro and payments equal to 759.7 million euro). The resources directly referable to cohesion policies amount to 2.06 billion euros.

Among the projects available in the focus, OC has chosen some relating to the construction of composting plants, which are described in this Data Card. The choice is linked to the importance that this type of technology can have in stimulating a reduction in per capita production of unsorted waste. The percentage of municipal waste sent to compost in 2018 on the total of those produced represents 23%: Italy exceeds the European average, which is still at 17% (ISPRA, 2020). In fact, organic waste already represents 38.8% of those sent for recycling (ISPRA, 2020), separating paper and cardboard by almost fifteen percentage points (24.9%).

According to the "Urban Waste Report - 2020 Edition" of the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), in 2019 the treatment of the organic fraction of separate waste collection (wet + green) reached 6.4 million tons (respectively, 3.1 million tons are treated in the composting plants, about 2.9 million tons are treated in integrated anaerobic / aerobic treatment plants, while about 328 thousand tons are sent to anaerobic digestion plants) ".

The ISTAT data, those published on OC in the section “Territorial indicators for development policies”, however, highlight the presence of marked territorial differences. If at national level the quantity of wet fraction intercepted and treated in composting plants for the production of quality compost was 59.9% of the total in 2019, in the Southern Regions the average figure is still at 36.9%. The situation is also complex in the Central Regions, stuck at 30 percent. The North, on the other hand, is capable of intercepting over 90% of the wet fraction in composting plants, a figure that also takes into account flows arriving from other Regions.

In order to cope with this situation, cohesion policies, as the projects monitored on OpenCoesione show, focus their investments on improving plant engineering, particularly in the Southern Regions. The Data Card is dedicated to these projects. In particular, 3 interventions carried out in Sardinia are described: this is the Region that between 2007 and 2019 was able to radically change its situation, passing from a capacity to intercept in composting plants only 11.8% of the organic fraction to managing 88.8% efficiently (ISTAT).

The ISPRA analysis specifies how "in some regions, structural deficiencies emerge, especially in relation to the treatment of the organic fractions of separate waste collection, which determine the location of such waste in plants located in different regions and often distant from those in which they are produced". The total quantity of organic fraction flows handled in 2019 is approximately 1.7 million tons.

The latest ISPRA report, however, highlights an increase in the number of treatment plants: "The year 2019 is characterized by an increase in equipment (6 operating units more than in 2018) solely conditioned by the increase in plants that use the integrated anaerobic / aerobic treatment, thanks also to the conversion of pre-existing composting plants. The entire system consists of 345 operating units, with a total authorized quantity of 10.8 million tons ".

At the end of 2019 the endowment present on the national territory was made of:

• 281 (unchanged compared to 2018) plants dedicated only to aerobic treatment (composting);

• 41 (35 in 2018) integrated anaerobic / aerobic treatment plants,

• 23 anaerobic digestion plants (unchanged compared to 2018) ".