Paper and Board Collection, Recycling, and Recovery in Italy in 2024

Each recoverable and recyclable material has a story of its own. The story of separate collection and recycling of paper and board in Italy is also the story of Comieco. AND COMIECO IS US.

Whatever the numbers, which are broadly detailed on the following pages and in the appendix dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Report, including a special comment by Edo Ronchi, I wish to dedicate this introduction to the journey from our roots to our present state.

We are driven by an inspiration that you surely recognized in the image selected for the cover of this edition. A true circular economy reaches far beyond mere technology or numbers and digs its roots into the cultural sharing, regeneration, and restitution mindset. Hence the forest metaphor – a collective and interdependent organism where cooperation and resilience are more crucial than competition - that pervades our narrative: a model where waste becomes nutrition, resources circulate, and true strength is in connections.

This annual report does not just disclose results and statistics, but most of all celebrates the connections that made our progress possible.

Because, like in a forest, each element plays a role, and each role is vital. Each of us – whether a citizen, a student, or a professional operator - like a tree of the same “urban forest”, played, plays, and will play a crucial role in the past 40 years of separate paper and board collection and recycling in Italy and in the next.

Back in 1985, when the waste emergency became evident, a small group of private entrepreneurs in the paper business gave life to Comieco, the Committee for Environmentfriendly Packaging.

It was the beginning of a silent, yet overwhelming revolution, which transformed our society in terms of economy, of role of the local authorities, of our daily habits, and of the very concept of sustainability. The EC packaging Directive of 1994 and the Ronchi Decree of 1997 outlined a circular system where all the players operate in synergy under the leadership of CONAI and of the Pipeline Consortia.

The Committee then developed into the Consortium as we know it today - a non manufacturing no-profit facility that operates in a transparent, effective, and efficient manner to support Italy in its progress towards excellence, surpassing all the European paper and board packaging recycling targets ahead of time and thus generating economic, social, and environmental benefits for the community at large.

The recycling economy, and the Italian recycled paper industry in particular, is among the country’s most dynamic, not just as part of waste management, but also as a crucial component of our industrial and economic fabric.

Comieco was established 40 years ago with this mission, and numbers speak for themselves: it first created the culture and early relations between the Cities and the recycling pipeline; then, with the Agreements with the Italian Cities effective within the CONAI System since 1998, separate paper and board collection increased almost fourfold in Italy, from 1 to over 3.8 million tons/year in 2024. This is even more evident in the South and Islands, where collection was only occasional and related to the presence of local paper mills. On the other hand, services are available everywhere today, and numbers have increased twenty-fold. Collected and recycled paper and board are now, a valuable resource for Italy, as much as they used to be in the past.

The recycling economy, and the Italian recycled paper industry in particular, is among the country’s most dynamic, not just as part of waste management, but also as a crucial component of our industrial and economic fabric.

This virtuous system generates positive impacts in all respects. In short, paper and board recycling bring profits for everyone. These positive impacts enhance our 40th anniversary. Happy birthday to US as citizens, public administrators, collection service operators, waste management system operators, and managers of paper mills, paper production and packaging usage systems.