Waste - State and impacts (Italy)

In 2006 total waste generation reached approximately 167 million tonnes (Mt), an increase of about 91 % from 1997 (Figure 1).

After many years of high growth, stabilisation at 32.5 Mt of municipal waste generation was noted between 2006 and 2007 (Rapporto Rifiuti 2008:http://www.apat.gov.it/site/itIT/APAT/Pubblicazioni/Rapporto_rifiuti/Documento/rapporto_rfi08.html; http://annuario.apat.it/capitoli/Ver_6/en/Waste%20cycle.pdf - Paragraph ‘Generation’, pg 294). Generation of hazardous and non-hazardous waste has also continued to grow, from 83 Mt in 2000 to 134.7 Mt in 2006. Of this, 125.5 Mt was non-hazardous waste – including 52 Mt construction and demolition (C&D) – and 9.2 Mt was hazardous waste.

Between 2006 and 2007, landfilling of municipal waste fell by 2.4 %; in the same period there was an increase of 34.2 % in the amount of waste managed in anaerobic digestion plants, 7.6 % by mechanical biological treatment (MBT), 4.8% by composting and 0.1% by incineration. The fraction of municipal waste incinerated remained stable at 12.1 % in 2006 and 12.2 % in 2007. The 44 operating plants, in 2007, equipped for energy recovery produced approximately 3 million MWh of electrical and 1.1 million MWh of thermal energy. (Rapporto Rifiuti 2008:http://www.apat.gov.it/site/itIT/APAT/Pubblicazioni/Rapporto_rifiuti/Documento/rapporto_rfi08.html; http://annuario.apat.it/capitoli/Ver_6/en/Waste%20cycle.pdf - Paragraph ‘Management’, pg 301).

A total of more than 117 Mt of hazardous and non hazardous waste from economic activities – called special waste – was managed in 2006, 91.6 % of which was non-hazardous and 8.4 % hazardous waste.

Figure 3 shows that approximately 57.7 Mt or 49.3 % were managed by material recovery operations, The most common disposal operation remains landfill, with approximately 19 Mt or 16.3 % of total special waste. A total of 13.4 Mt is destined for storage, 2 % of the total pending disposal and 9.4 %  pending recovery (Rapporto Rifiuti 2008: http://www.apat.gov.it/site/itIT/APAT/Pubblicazioni/Rapporto_rifiuti/Documento/rapporto_rfi08.html; http://annuario.apat.it/capitoli/Ver_6/en/Waste%20cycle.pdf - Paragraph ‘Management’, pg 301).

Regarding packaging waste, in 2007 about 12.4 Mt were put on the market in Italy, a 2 % increase from 2006, corresponding to about 200 000 tonnes of packaging material.

Table 1: Packaging put on the market (2000 – 2007)

Source: ISPRA

Table 2: Recovery and recycling of packaging waste (2003-2007)

Source: ISPRA

As shown in table 2, in 2007 8.4 Mt of packaging waste were recovered, an increase of 4.6% from 2006, equivalent to almost 370 000 t, confirming the positive trend of the previous years.