Plastic waste management: a comprehensive analysis of the current status to set up an after-use plastic strategy in Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy).

The evidence of the impact of the mismanagement of plastic goods in the environment has captured the attention of scientists, policy makers and manufacturers. Urgent measures, regarding a combination of preventing plastic use and massively improving waste management, have been acclaimed by different stakeholders with the common goal to make a more resilient and competitive plastic industry. European Commission has pledged itself publishing the first EU-wide policy framework on plastics. The new recycling targets and calculation method put under pressure the current waste management system (WMS), characterized by fragmentation in responsibilities and underperforming cost-benefit balance. In addition, the public-private governance and the increasing number in waste consortia and platforms contribute to make the waste streams traceability challenging. The following study, resulting from a collaboration between the University of Bologna (UNIBO), the Emilia-Romagna Region (ERR), and the Regional Agency for Prevention, Environment and Energy (ARPAE), investigates the current panorama of plastic waste recycling system in ERR (Italy) with the aim to find out to what extent the current performance fulfils the future scenario established by the European Commission. The market of secondary plastics (SPs) has been investigated as well. The secondary resources, which are no longer waste, are not registered and monitored by official data collection scheme. Data extrapolated from official waste databases are integrated with results coming from individual questionnaire submitted to local recyclers. The identification of the main polymeric streams and, therefore, the exploitation of economic potential represent the preliminary actions to strategically plan an after-use plastic economy whose main goal is having all recyclable and/or recycled plastic packaging by 2030.

Municipal solid waste prevention: A review of market-based instruments in six European Union countries.

This article focuses on quantitative prevention of municipal solid waste among the 28 member countries of the European Union. A strict definition of waste prevention is used, including waste avoidance, waste reduction at source or in process, and product reuse, while recycling is outside the scope of this article. In order to provide a solid overview of the European situation, the study selected six countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain). Several selection requirements have been considered, such as geographic location or municipal solid waste per capita production trends from 1995 to 2017. A review of prevention programmes and other national strategic documents has been conducted. Extended producer responsibility, Pay-As-You-Throw schemes, Deposit-Refund Systems and Environmental Taxes implementation among the selected countries have been studied in order to understand how these market-based instruments can be used for the sake of waste prevention. Each market-based instrument has been further analysed using the Drivers Pressures State Impact Response model. Based on the results of this study, the effectiveness of market-based instruments implementation is strictly related to the context they are enforced in. It is particularly important to tailor the market-based instruments based on the implementation area. Nevertheless, market-based instruments, which are now mostly meant to boost the recycling sector of the considered Member States, should be designed to improve waste prevention performances, ensuring the achievement of the highest level of waste hierarchy promoted by the European Union.