Ecological Islands

The Ministry of the Environment with the MINISTERIAL DECREE 8/4/2008, published in the Official Gazette No. 99 of 28/04/2008 pursuant to Art. 183 paragraph 1 letter cc) of the Legislative Decree 3/4/2006 no. 152 as amended and with Ministerial Decree 13/05/2009published in OJ No. 165 of 18-7-2009, regulated the way in which the Centres are set up and managed Municipal and Inter-municipal Collection taking into account, in particular, the guideline standards on the management of WEEE set out in the D.Lgs. 25/07/2005 no. 151 and D.M. Ambiente of 25/09/2007 no. 185. The Collection Centres are manned and set up areas where only the collection activity is carried out, through grouping by homogeneous fractions for transport to recovery, treatment and, for the non-recoverable fractions, disposal plants of urban and assimilated waste conferred in a differentiated manner respectively by domestic and non-domestic users, as well as by other parties obliged under current sectoral regulations to collect specific types of waste from domestic users, also through the public service manager. In all Collection Centres/Ecological Sites the user (domestic and non-domestic) can go to the centre to sort their waste, which is then treated as "materials" to be sent for recovery. After the visual inspection carried out by the employee and weighing, the "materials" are placed, by the same user with the indications of the centre operators, in separate areas of the centre for homogeneous flows, through the identification of their characteristics and of the different types and product fractions, separating potentially hazardous waste from non-hazardous waste and waste to be sent for recovery from waste for disposal. The storage areas are identified and provided with explicit signs. The delivery of sorted waste to the Collection Centres entitles both domestic and non-domestic users to discounts on the variable part of the tax.