Waste Minimization via Waste and Fee Regulations

Waste Minimization via Waste and Fee Regulations CONTACT DOMENICO SCAMARDELLA, Quadrifoglio S.p.A GIUSEPPE PONZINI, Quadrifoglio S.p.A Domenico Scamardella Quadrifoglio SpA Via Baccio Da Montelupo 50142 Firenze Tel. 0039557339329 Fax. 0039557339304 Giuseppe Ponzini Quadrifoglio SpA Via Baccio Da Montelupo 50142 Firenze Tel. 0039557339384 Fax. 0039557339304 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The article aims to address the issue of waste reduction through the introduction of an integrated system of regulation, based on the fee of environmental regulations for municipal waste management and service contracts as a means of real economic incentive. This is possible by the Environmental Law (Legislative Decree No. 152/06), confirming that the approach of the Ronchi Decree of February 1997 allows and promotes the relationship between the waste operator and the costumers services. Moreover, the idea implied by this approach aims to waste reduction as the Directive 2008/98/CE suggests by defining the concept of prevention as set of measures taken before a substance, material or product become waste. In our experience there are two ways for waste minimization: Primarily, through firms' production system technical changes; Secondly, through a regulation system that may finance the modification of internal organization. The key concept is that only the construction of a direct relationship between waste producer and the waste management company can ensure the achievement of aims for environmental and economic sustainability. This paper will start with the classification of municipal solid waste and will focus on the model of regulation of the integrated waste management developed in the area managed by Quadrifoglio. It is a Public waste management company which operates in the territory of the Municipality of Firenze and in the province for about 500,000 inhabitants. THE WASTE CLASSIFICATION The Environmental Law (Legislative Decree No. 152/06) incorporates the definition of waste content in the Ronchi Decree (Legislative Decree No. 22/97). The waste classification in the Ronchi Decree proceeded to define and classify the waste, thus laying the foundations for the construction of the new management arrangements. The waste

classification in the Environmental Law recalls the Ronchi Decree about typology and origin of waste. As the latter, in fact, it defines four groups of waste: Municipal waste non hazardous; Municipal waste hazardous; industrial or commercial (non household) waste non hazardous; industrial or commercial (non household) waste hazardous. Classification of waste as urban or as nonurban involves significant effects on the rules applicable. In fact, the management of municipal waste appertains to municipal administration, while the industrial waste should be up to producers. The Municipal waste comprises the non-hazardous one or the ordinary industrial waste that, although generated by an industrial or commercial activity, are still similar by nature and composition to household waste. The non-hazardous or ordinary industrial waste are assimilated by the Municipal Regulations and they are equivalent to the municipal waste in every aspects, either for collection, transport and disposal, or for the basis of the fee payment related to the surfaces where they are produced. Non household waste can be assimilated by special agreement between producers and operators of public service or by producers, directly, to a capable treatment facility. Three different legislative approaches followed one after the other: Initially the Government addressed Municipality with specific guidelines to assimilate the non household waste to Municipal ones; then, only the Government determined which non household waste were similar to the municipal ones. Currently, the guidelines to assimilate the non household waste at the urban waste, were up to the Municipality. Nowadays, a recent national law (Legislative Decree No 04/2008), excludes the large retailers waste from municipal solid one. However, such law is not yet implemented. The effects of this decree will involve important changes in the municipal waste management and in the fee system. Now, the assimilation criteria adopted in the areas managed by Quadrifoglio waste company, for the disposal and treatment when there aren t specific collection forms, are based on two foundations stemming from interpretations of national legislation. First, it is possible to assimilate all packaging and product fractions typical household, as the organic fraction of unlimited quantity, using the standard collection activity defined in the Service Contracts. In second place you can assimilate waste from non domestic activities, different from packaging and product typical household fractions, produced on areas subject to Tax or Fee with the purpose of disposal and treatment in the devices managed by the public service or affiliated with it. It should be clarified, in fact, that the new municipal regulations requires waste should fit into a type of assimilated waste having physical characteristics (It is not toxic, presents no hazard and thus requires no special treatment) compatible with the normal collection service of municipal waste. WASTE ITALIAN PRODUCTION In 2008, the largest values of waste production per capita are found in central Italy, where every resident produced approximately 619 kg: the highest value is registered by Tuscany, with 686 kg/ year per capita. Whereas the smallest values are found in Southern Italy, with about 496 kg/year per capita. The North, with 541 kg/year proxies to the national average, amounting to about 540 kg per capita.

Figure 1. Per capita municipal waste production for macroareas. Figure 2. Non municipal hazardous waste production for macroareas, year 2008. Figure 1suggests that in some regions where the policies of assimilation are more severe, the value is much lower compared to other areas where there policies are more indulgent. The impacts of the assimilation policies on the per capita production in Central Italy show how the special waste products tend to be lower in this area than in northern Italy, where the policies of assimilation are more restrictive. In northern Italy, a smaller amount of urban waste production agrees a larger amount of non household waste than central Italy production (see Figure 2 and 3). On the contrary, in Central Italy the production of municipal waste is higher because the presence of assimilated waste is stronger, while there are low amount of hazardous and nonhazardous non household waste production. In the South of Italy the limited production of non household waste may be due to illegal relinquishment of waste, to the presence of eco-mafia and to less industrial and commercial activities than Northern and Central Italy.

Finally, the collection management of municipal waste may influence waste productions. The collected amount of waste is related to the methods of collection of non separated waste. The adoption of larger garbage bins can facilitate the collection of non separate waste, assimilated or not, such as industrial and commercial inappropriate waste (eg. inert waste or bulky waste). Figure 3. Non municipal non hazardous waste production for macroareas, year 2008. Figure 4. Municipal waste production in Quadrifoglio Area. In opposite, the adoption of door-to-door systems collection incentives the most user responsibility and, hence, a greater contribute in the separate collection. Moreover it simplifies the control activities, making more difficult the inappropriate contributions. In the period 2005 2008 (see Figure 4), the data collected about the areas managed by Quadrifoglio, shows how some management and regulation policies, with other factors, influenced the reduction of municipal waste. The new experimental methods of collection, as a SUEI (Specific Used Ecological Island) and non domestic door-to-door, led to increase the separate collection by the interception of packaging products from industrial and commercial activities, and to decrease the rate

of non separate waste. This permit to manage separately all kind of non household waste and to have management costs reduced. THE REGULATION Figure 5. The regulation system. The fee The fee is the price of a public service, or the remuneration given by the economic benefit that the user draws from a requested service. It is composed of a fixed part, based on the essential components of the costs of the service, and a variable part, related to the amount of waste collected in the last year. It is divided into domestic and non domestic segments. The fee, based on the characteristics of the Municipality areas, loses its meaning if it is not associated with planning and regulation tools such as the waste management regulations, the service contracts, the financial plan and the rules of fee regulation strictly connected to them (see Figure 5). The Financial Plan The Financial Plan is an essential tool for managing the cycle of waste. It shows the quantitative and qualitative data of the different types of waste collected as the: structures and types of activated collection systems; costs of waste collection and transportation; costs of treatment and disposal; remunerations from contributions and sales of recycling waste. The Financial Plan is proposed by Quadrifoglio management and approved by individual Municipalities. The purpose of the Financial Plan is the determination of the fee. The Service Contract and Management Regulation The Service Contract has a key role in the regulation of services. It is related to the contents of the regulations for the service management and lists the basic principles to be

followed by the subject manager in the acts edition (technical-economic Documents, Services Charter and Financial Plan). It is related to the outsourcing of services by Municipalities following the Local Government Reform. The Municipality should exercise control on the effective and correct supply specified in the Service Contract. The control should be conducted through a series of tools that provide for supervision of supplied services and their results. The local authority may ask to the waste company information relating to the management. The waste management company has the responsibility of the services toward the townspeople and the municipal authorities, ensuring the final results in the Service Contract. The Service Charter shows the relationship between company management and user on service supply, and makes it possible, users to control the standard of service. Service contract and waste regulations are appropriate tools for the waste management based on the needs of the territories and on the targets to be reached. From the Service Contract comes the financial plan and therefore the fee. The service contract defines a standard supply which varies according to the characteristics of the areas and the waste productions. For example, in the city centers solutions aimed to change the organization of standard services are planned, or in several industrial districts there are systems for collecting non domestic waste, as SUEI (Specific Used Ecological Island) and non domestic door-to-door. In this way the overall costs of waste management could be distributed equitably to all of the users using the fee as a tool. THE FEE DISCOUNT The transformation of the tax in fee allowed Quadrifoglio company to connect with the users/customers and to develop an original approach to the fee. The reform of the amount due was not only a financial event but also the natural fulfillment of what Quadrifoglio, along with Firenze Area Municipalities (Firenze, Campi Bisenzio, Calenzano, Sesto Fiorentino and Signa), started by arranging Services Contracts and Financial Plans, even before these were set by law. The leading principle of Quadrifoglio s experience is that the aforesaid acts and regulations combine toward a proper allocation of the fee. Also, in the areas it manages, Quadrifoglio has introduced the concept of discount in order to foster positive behaviors, which contribute to reduce costs and to increase environmental awareness. The idea implied by this approach is aimed to waste reduction. Normally, local laws set the requirements for the discount and lists several actions, such as the improvements of the productive processes with the purpose to reduce or to collect waste in industrial districts and to enhance separate collection. Waste reduction and the separate collection increase are the fundamental purposes of the fee, especially in terms of cost savings, given that the non separate waste disposal cost much more than the recycling waste. A fee structured in this way rewards virtuous behaviors from industrial customers that produce waste similar to the urban ones, from a quality standpoint. This has allowed the identification of alternative management solutions close to specific customers, like to: the reduction waste from the canteens through the replacement of disposable tableware with ceramic/glass, and the distribution of drinks; the reduction waste from furniture stores through selling below cost of damaged items or without the quality standard;

the reduction waste from research of new technologies and processes to reduce the amount of packaging; the reduction waste from the collection of surplus food in the stores to distribute to the Food Bank and kennels; the reduction waste from the sale of products on tap with the use of special dispensers; the reduction waste in the banks and the offices from reduction in paper consumption through the computerization of documents and communications. THE NEW APPROACH TO WASTE REDUCTION The Legislative Decree No 04/2008 changes the criteria to assimilate non household waste to municipal ones: the new regulation excludes the waste produced by large retailers from urban waste. and creates a new fee that large retailers shall pay for their waste. Nonetheless, the new act is not yet in effect, lacking an Enforcement Decree.. Whether implemented, the new approach will have several effects on waste reduction, on the fee due by citizens, and on the waste management: First, the new approach will lead to urban waste reduction: the most part of urban waste, in fact, currently consist of the large retailer ones. Classifying them as non urban, and therefore detracting them from the sum of urban waste, from one year to the other, we will register a significative reduction. Secondly, the new classification of large retailer waste as non urban will produce a bigger pressure on household fee. At the present time, in fact, the costs are prorated over all of users (household and non-household). With the new policy, costs shall be entirely covered by the household fee. Indeed, the fact that costs consist also of a relevant fixed part (i.e. Capital costs, staff costs..) imply that they will decrees much less than urban waste volume; therefore, the fee due by citizens will increase. Finally, excluding large retailer waste from urban ones, will require a rethink of waste management. The service will be offered only to citizens and little commercial users through a door-to-door collection system; whereas the large retailers waste shall be managed separately, through a dedicate collection system and they will pay a specific fee, based on the amount of waste they produce. CONCLUSIONS The results achieved by Quadrifoglio in the areas where it operates show the effectiveness of our approach. The practices adopted by the industrial sector have led to a waste reduction, which allowed the waste management company to reduce the waste collection schedule. The final benefit for the costumer is the fee reduction as a consequence of behaviors that reduce costs in the management of the waste services. However, as soon as the decree will be implemented, the contemporary system will collapse. Nowadays Quadrifoglio's strategy for waste reduction primarily focus on waste produced by non household users but classified as urban, which represent the most part of the collected waste. In future, not being able to intervene on this kind of waste anymore, our leeway will be limited. Moreover, the new classification will cause substantial changes in waste management, which, from then on, will be essentially financed by citizens through much higher fees. Cui prodest?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Authors wish to thank Dr. Marco Calonaci and Dr. Stefano Chiari for issues related to Fee, Mr. Luciano Ciapetti for financial aspects and Dr. Alessandro Gori for technical and commercial. REFERENCES Apat (2009), Rapporto rifiuti 2008, in www.apat.gov.it ; Calonaci M., Scamardella D. (2008), La tariffa e il territorio, Quadrifoglio S.p.A., submitted for Federambiente, Rome 21 June 2005; Cambini C. (2001), I servizi di igiene urbana: il passaggio dalla Tarsu alla tariffa, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, February 2001; Chiari S. (2008), La modifica del Decreto Ambientale per il settore rifiuti Art. 195 del D.Lgs 152/06: Assimilazione e Deassimilazione ai rifiuti urbani Impatti sulla TIA, submitted for TIFORMA, 18 march 2008, Firenze; Fazio A., Samoggia M.M., Scamardella D., (2007), SUEI (Specific Use Ecological Island) Integrated solution for separated collection and waste rate in industrial and commercial areas, submitted for ISWA World Congress 2007, Amsterdam; Montanaro R. (2005), La gestione dei rifiuti urbani, una difficile svolta, in Il diritto dell economia, n 2, ed. Mucchi Editore, Modena; Ponzini G. (2008), La gestione dei rifiuti assimilati: evoluzione normativa e prospettive di settore, Università degli Studi di Firenze, June 2008; Scamardella D. (2008), La modifica del Decreto Ambientale per il settore dei rifiuti, Assimilazione e deassimilazione ai rifiuti urbani: impatti sulla riorganizzazione dei servizi di raccolta rifiuti, submitted for TiForma, Firenze, 18 March 2008;