WASTE PLASTICS MANAGEMENT IN MUNICIPALITIES: LOGISTICS AND PROCESSES IN LOMBARDIA (NORTHERN ITALY)

A partnership of 49 Municipalities lying in Lombardia (Northern Italy) and belonging to the District “Monza and Brianza” has entrusted the management of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) to two Public Companies: “C.E.M. Ambiente S.p.A.” - which owns and operates a transfer station and a multi-material centre - and “SERUSO S.p.A.”, whose single facility is set up and equipped for a high performance factory sorting of the dry fraction of the urban waste. The catchment area is populated by 448 000, living in an area of 366 km2. The management system starts with household sorting for multi-bin curbside collection; followed by hauling to selection and physical treatment facilities; and last, transport of the selected fractions to final destinations. The yearly throughput of “C.E.M. Ambiente” is about 296 000 t, of which over 70% home-sorted. Extra-CEM customers add to this amount about 40 000 t/yr. When calculated on the partner municipalities, the waste generation rate is almost 1.8 kg/capita per day including waste from craftsmen and workshops. Less than 1% of the collected waste goes to landfill and about 8% to incineration with energy recovery (WTE). Since “C.E.M. Ambiente” operates mainly the logistics, however; and part of the materials recovery is actually made downstream its gate at “SERUSO” facility, where some by-products are unavoidably generated; the overall share of WTE will be slightly higher. Electric energy produced from the combustible by-products of “C.E.M. Ambiente” and “SERUSO” covers largely the energy needs of the recovery and cleaning processes. It is worthwhile stressing that in this district also waste from street sweeping – as much as 8 200 t/yr – is turned into sand, gravel and like for civil works. “C.E.M. Ambiente” uses also fuel energy, to operate collection and hauling vehicles and factory handling machines, all of them powered by Diesel engines. Fuel requirements for TS and MMC in 2011 were 78 405 and 14 605 litres, respectively. Regrettably, these needs cannot be satisfied in any way with recovered energy.