Planning, broad and medium and long-term vision are not the best qualities of us Italians, let’s face it. We are – generally speaking, of course – improvisational artists, qualities that perhaps many excellent planners more or less openly envy us, individuals or countries. Sometimes, however, in the lives of people and especially of companies, planning – especially if done as a team – pays and pays off.
What is happening with the banning of single-use plastics is a good example: having prepared in time would have brought great benefits to everyone, even more so would have been a teamwork between companies in the sector, in Italy and in Europe. perhaps it is never too late to correct, even partially, one’s character or nature.
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The rules that will come into force on 1 January 2022 on the obligation of separate collection and disposal of textile waste are a good example. Si vis pacem, para bellum, the Latins used to say: if you want peace, prepare for war. That doesn’t sound like an exaggerated metaphor, as the battle for environmental sustainability is – as the most recent extreme weather events, from fires in Canada to floods in Germany have shown – a matter of life (peace) or death (war) for us and the planet that hosts us Textile is the fourth production sector for the use of raw materials and water resources after food, construction and transport, Raffaele Lupoli, editorial director of EconomiaCircolare.com recalled in a conference promoted with Ecomondo last May .
Given the importance of the sector, the package of European directives on the circular economy established that each Member State must establish the separate collection of textile waste starting from January 1, 2025. And here comes the surprise: Italy has chosen to anticipate the date as of January 1, 2022, in just over five months. “At present, the collection of textiles is only partially structured on the national territory,” explained Valeria Frittelloni, director of the National Center for Waste and Circular Economy of the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (Ispra) during the Circular Talk organized by Ecomondo as part of the Digital Green Weeks, the digital events that will lead to the appointment in the presence of Ecomondo, the Italian sustainability fair, scheduled from 26 to 29 October in the Rimini exhibition center and now in its 24th edition.
The national average per capita of textile waste collection is 2.6 kilos per inhabitant: «Not very high. In the north we are at 2.88; 2.95 in the center and only two in the south – underlined Valeria Frittelloni -. There are excellences with values up to 4 kilos per inhabitant in some regions such as Trentino and Val d’Aosta, but also regions that are far behind such as Sicily, with one kilo per inhabitant and build a textile waste collection system by 2022 it won’t be that easy. “