Paper, for recycling from the Pnrr contribution of 106 million. 50% in the South

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For the paper supply chain, over 100 million contributions from the Pnrr. According to the update of the Nomisma study – commissioned by Comieco, the national consortium for the recovery and recycling of cellulose-based packaging – on the effects of the plan, there are 106 million out of a total of 321 investments for 58 plants: 16 paper mills, which process the waste to produce new paper, and 42 paper waste treatment sites. Of these, overall, 28 are located in the South, 11 in the Center and 19 in the North. Half of the projects relating to paper mills are concentrated in Northern Italy, while 57% of the projects relating to treatment plants refer to the Southern area.

The waste treatment plants receiving the Pnrr contribution will have a total treatment capacity of 844 thousand tons of paper waste from separate collection, of which 415 thousand tons in the South. «If the separate collection of paper was 15% of the total waste urban”, we read in the study, “a further 705 thousand tonnes might be collected at an Italian level, of which 405 thousand in the South”.

Recycling over 90%

These are numbers that strengthen a panorama, that of paper and cardboard recycling, which is already virtuous in Italy. At the opening of Paper Week 2024 (from 8 to 14 April) Comieco has in fact certified that by 2023 the packaging recycling rate has exceeded 90%, following four years it is stably above 85% – which is the objective set by European Union for 2030.

On the occasion of the presentation of the Nomisma study, Laura D’Aprile, head of the sustainable development department of the Ministry of the Environment, commented on the new financing: «The leverage effect of these investments, especially in the South where new plants will be built, is extraordinary: in this sense the estimate referring to Sicily and Campania compared to the scenario without Pnrr is significant with, respectively, 14% and 4% incremental annual rate of employment growth”.

Francesco Capobianco of Nomisma added: «The effects of the Pnrr will also be felt from an environmental point of view thanks to a decrease in landfill disposal and a better energy efficiency of the plants with a consequent decrease in CO2 consumption per unit of product».