A wake-up call amid piles of plastic on the roadsides. The nationwide shutdown at storage centers erupted yesterday in Selargius , with hundreds of bags left outside doorways and gates uncollected . An emergency that—pending solutions—threatens to engulf other municipalities in the greater Cagliari area in the coming days. "This is a nationwide problem, and this isn't to downplay the situation, but simply to demonstrate the gravity of what's happening," Mayor Gigi Concu explained after the bags left on the streets were not collected.
The problem has simultaneously exploded in the capital, where collection has been halted. Two cases, those of Selargius and Cagliari, are added to those in smaller towns. If a solution isn't found, workers in Olbia, Oristano, and Nuoro may also be forced to stop in the coming days. We'll see.
Upstream, there's competition from China, which produces plastic at half the cost of the rest of the world, threatening to undermine the circular economy of sorted plastic. Companies that recycle plastic after it has been sorted, separated in sorting centers, and compacted for reuse have already raised the alarm: it's too expensive compared to the virgin Chinese raw material ; we can no longer afford it.
Further details and insights can be found in the articles by Federica Lai and Mauro Madeddu, available on newsstands today and on the L'Unione Digital app.
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