Luca Ruini is the new chairman of CONAI

Meeting on 22 July in Milan, the new Board of Directors of the National Packaging Consortium CONAI unanimously elected Luca Ruini as its chairman for the three-year period 2020-2022.

Ruini, 55, served as a member of CONAI’s Board of Directors from 2002 to 2008 and from 2011 to 2017. He participated in all the working groups involved in developing the Italian Packaging Waste management system and led the Prevention working group.

A graduate in Electronic Engineering from the University of Bologna with a specialisation in microelectronics and management, Ruini has served as Barilla Group’s Director of Safety, Environment & Energy since 2008.

The Consortium’s vice chairmen were appointed on 6 July: Angelo Tortorelli, representing distributors and retailers, and Domenico Rinaldini, representing manufacturers.

Ruini takes over from Giorgio Quagliuolo who led the Consortium for the three-year period 2017-2019.

The role of CONAI

Conai promotes packaging waste recycling and energy recovery efforts throughout Italy. In 2019 the consortium’s work resulted in 70% of packaging waste being recycled: 9,560,000 tons out of the total 13,655,000 tons of packaging placed on the market. Combining the figures for recycling and energy recovery results in a total quantity of recovered packaging waste of more than 11 million tons in 2019, almost 81% of the total.