CONAI: the recycling chain faces the crisis

In Italy the economic benefits produced by the recycling of packaging stand at 10 billion euros a year, half of which attributable to the consortium.

In 2013 the CONAI system reconfirmed itself a fundamental actor in the safeguarding of the environment as well as the entire industrial chain that goes from  the collection to the processing and exploitation of packaging waste.
This is what has emerged from the report on the management of the balance of CONAI - the national Italian Packaging Consortium, presented mid April, and this despite the fact that the economic crisis has heavily affected the sector.
According to interim figures for 2013,  packaging waste placed on the market, strongly affected by economic trends and the uncertainty that besets the period, is in line with what was registered last year, totalling 11.4 million tons.

On the up the figures for the overall recovery of steel, aluminium, paper, wood, plastic and glass packaging, that shows an increase of 1.3% in volume compared to the previous year, totalling 76.7% of material placed on the market for consumption, standing at 8.74 million tons of packaging  recovered out of 11,392,000 t marketed.
Overall recycling is seen to stand at 66.5% of marketed product, slightly up on figures for the year previous.

Indeed the growth in the management of packaging waste under the ANCI-CONAI agreement is significant (+3.3% compared to 2012), to  a total of 3.37 billion tons directly managed. The most sizeable increase is seen in the plastics sector (+10.9% compared to 2012), mainly to be put down to the growth in volume collected in Italy’s southern regions. Some 7000 municipalities are served under the convention, involving over 57 million citizens, totalling 90% of the Italian population.