Author(s)

F. Pirlone, I. Spadaro

Abstract

The theme of waste is one of the major environmental challenges at the international level, with a significant impact in the strategies to be adopted in urban areas.

Given the importance of the issue, the EU has required Member States to develop Waste Management Plans. Currently in Italy there are few Plans realized at the municipal level, and the existing tools have quite heterogeneous contents.

The paper shows an EU research on the definition of guidelines for the preparation of an Urban Waste Management Plan; a Plan able to reach an integrated waste system, in which the different stages of management are coordinated and integrated in the context of the whole process.

After the definition of the Guidelines, the paper presents a first elaboration for the Municipality of Genoa which involved University, Public Administration and practitioners in the sector. Currently the city doesn’t have a dedicated Plan; the waste management is governed by the Regional Waste Management Plan (2014) and by the Urban Waste Prevention Programme (2010). The new Plan proposed for Genoa has important objectives to solve the specific problems of the territory: from the reduction of waste, to a management economically and environmentally sustainable, to valorization of recyclable and recoverable fractions through separate collection, aiming to the green economy until close of the cycle of the waste with the production of compost.

In order to achieve a good level of implementation, following the preparation of the Plan, the participatory processes will play a key role in ensuring the full consent and cooperation between the actors involved and especially with the population that is the main actuator.

Keywords

governance, sustainability, Urban Waste Management Plan