The Ambassador of Italy Paolo Trichilo partecipated as a speaker in the RETRACE Interregional Dissemination Event. The RETRACE project, acronym of “A Systemic Approach for REgions TRAnsitioning towards a Circular Economy”, promotes the adoption of Systemic Approach as a methodology in support of the transition towards Circular Economy for the elaboration of regional and local development policies.
The project coordinated by the Department of Architecture and Design (DAD) at Politecnico di Torino and supported by the Interreg Europe programme, involves 8 private and public partners and more than 70 stakeholders from Italy, France, Spain, Slovenia and Romania in order to boost the cooperation between regions of European Countries.
Intervention by H.E. Mr Paolo Trichilo, Ambassador of Italy
Minister Puric,
Executive Director Milic,
Dear participants and guests,
I would like to focus my speech on the 5th Agi-Censis report “Why the Circular Economy in Italy is worthwhile”. The new paradigm of circularity is a theme in which Italy plays an important role: because it is a manufacturing country without natural resources with the
lowest consumption of raw materials in Europe; among the best at extracting value from the resources used; leader for the circulation of materials recovered within the production processes; Italy’s recycling industry is estimated to produce about 1% of GDP.
The following data show that Italy is a reference point for Europe when it comes to the “circular economy”:
• it has the lowest domestic consumption of raw materials: 8.5 tons per capita against 13.5 in the EU average;
• it is among the best at extracting value from the resources used: 3.34 euros of GDP for each kg of resources, against an average European value of 2.2 € / kg;
• it is in 1st place for “circulation” of materials recovered within the production processes (18.5% of re-use compared to 10.7% in Germany);
• of the total waste produced (129 million tons) only 21% is sent for disposal (compared to the European average of 49%). Of the total waste treated, Italy sends 76.9% to recycling (36.2% is the EU average);
• in 1999, 68% of urban waste was sent directly for disposal. Today this percentage has dropped to around 8%;
• the recycling industry alone is estimated to produce 12.6 billion euros of added value (about 1% of the Italian GDP);
• in 2017, 48% of Italians bought or sold second-hand goods, with 11% growth compared to 2016. A market worth 21 billion euros (1.2% of GDP). 42% of used goods purchases took place online;
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• Car sharing subscribers doubled in two years: from 630 thousand in 2015 to 1 million 310 thousand in 2017.