Treviso: Record waste separation and lowest waste tax in Italy.

In Italy there is a Treviso model, not surprisingly chosen as the European Green Capital for 2025, the first Italian city to achieve this coveted milestone. The experience of this Veneto city is crucial for understanding the mechanisms that enable extraordinary results to be achieved, in the interests of its citizens. Two facts are worth mentioning immediately: Treviso is simultaneously the Italian city with the highest percentage of separate waste collection and the lowest waste tax.

According to data from ARPAV (Regional Agency for Environmental Prevention and Protection in Veneto), the provincial capital has the highest percentage of separate waste collection in the entire country: 87,2 percent, with a residual waste production of 55,46 kilograms per inhabitant (the national average is 386 kilograms of waste produced by each Italian). In concrete terms: the citizens of Treviso, thanks to their civic-mindedness, manage to dispose of waste properly and, at the same time, produce less and less of it.

Treviso has another record that goes hand in hand with the boom in separate waste collection: a very low garbage taxThe average in Italy is 320 euros per family (in Campania it reaches 412 euros), a third more than the 231 € paid annually by households in Treviso and the 49 municipalities of the Priula consortium. There are no open-air landfills here, like those the European Union has been futilely asking us to close for years, yet they continue to operate, so to speak, at full capacity, at the expense of residents in the affected areas. In Treviso, however, thanks to the high percentage of waste sorting, a well-functioning waste collection service, harvesting and disposal, to small ones composting plants, waste almost everyone comes recycled e reusedCompost is produced from organic waste, which is then sold to nurseries; while glass, plastic, and cans end up in supply chain consortia to be transformed into industrial products for sale. There's no sign of garbage on the streets. Nowhere.

The Treviso model includes three things that should be taken into consideration by all Italian municipalities. A good policy of incentiveThose who recycle properly save money: this is the message that has governed the local waste disposal system for years. Starting with the waste tax. And incentives even target individual products, those most at risk for pollution. As in the case of diapers: the municipality incentivizes the purchase of cloth diapers for the most disadvantaged families.
A second piece of the Treviso model concerns theefficiency of the collection networkThere's door-to-door collection, but first and foremost, there are 674 vehicles in the field for garbage collection, of which almost half, 265 to be precise, are dedicated specifically to home collection. These small, efficient vehicles avoid creating traffic chaos and perform their function effectively, keeping Treviso clean at all times. Finally, let's not underestimate the civic sense of citizens: without their cooperation, any administrative intervention will be a dead letter.

In the meantime, there is no need to worry about it. ”

The real problem is that, even when it comes to waste separation, we're a patchy country, with areas where the data is comparable to Northern Europe and areas where we slip to the bottom of all the rankings. And these differences aren't just between North and South (although the majority of municipalities with the highest waste separation rates are in the northern regions), but also within a single province. Naples stands at 38 percent (and is growing, albeit slightly), but in the nearby municipality of Melito, the rate is well over 50 percent. Perhaps with such vast distances, in two areas so close, the daily behavior of residents matters significantly.

Treviso: Record waste separation and lowest waste tax in Italy.

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