Urban Waste Management in Florence Metropolitan Area

Abstract

This article analyses regulation and municipal solid waste management experience in the Florence metropolitan area (Tuscany-Italy). The case study brings to evidence the most relevant aspects of modern technical and economic waste regulation contributing to the practical and theoretical debate on this subject, quite common in many countries of the world. The main topics covered are the following: (a) the presence of a supramunicipal local regulator (Local Waste Authority) that operates in the absence of a National Regulatory Authority (the opposite to what happens in Italy in the water, energy, and transport sectors); (b) the choice to promote scale economies focusing mainly on the demand side and to entrust the management of the service to a single local waste operator through a tendering process, overcoming the previous fragmented situation (from 50 operators to one single operator); (c) the choice of becoming more efficient through economies of scale and adopting the tendering procedure for the entrustment of urban waste management (one of the biggest in Europe for fifteen years); (d) the choice of including in the concession agreement the environmental objectives foreseen by Italian and European legislation (70 % of separate waste and 60 % recycling, energy saving, no landfill); (e) the choice of keeping the implementation of the energy plant (for which a PPP partnership had been foreseen, selecting the private partner through a tendering process) separated from the integrated service management; (f) the choice to switch from a local taxation system specifically intended for waste (TARI) to a ‘pay as you throw’ system with consequential direct responsibility for the regulator in collecting and overcoming ‘derivative finance’ and a broadened application of the producer liability principle; and (g) adding the ‘urban waste management’ project to the ‘smart city’ strategy framework of Florence and its metropolitan area.