On 5 February 1997, Legislative Decree No. 22, known as the “Ronchi Decree”, was issued. In order to make the European directives on urban waste, hazardous waste and packaging effective, it represents the cornerstone of waste management in our country. It introduces the concept of “Integrated Waste Management”, which replaces the concept of waste disposal as the exhaustive moment of the entire management, establishing precise rules to reduce waste production, incentivise recovery and recycling, increase the environmental awareness of citizens and create an active collaboration between companies and municipalities.
The waste produced in the University can be divided into:
- those sent for ‘separate collection’, i.e. waste assimilated to urban waste such as paper, plastic, aluminium and glass;
- those “special”, produced by the complex and manifold activities of service to university education with a potentially very high impact on the environment, which belong to all those types of waste that must be managed with a specific path that favours waste reduction, as well as their differentiation in the production, collection and final treatment phases in order to recycle, reuse or recover energy. These types of waste are numerous, produced in chemical, biological and educational laboratories and offices, and are managed with authorised companies.
The University is committed, also in the context of “Sustainable Unibs”, to planning actions to improve the management and collection of urban and special waste also through awareness-raising, dissemination and training on issues such as the circular economy, waste reduction and the implementation of green procurement. In fact, as stated in the “University Plan for Sustainable Development”, Unibs has long been 'committed to sustainable development in its research projects, programmes and learning activities; in the construction and management of its buildings and residences; in its mobility choices; in the use of energy and all natural resources. The Athenaeum orients its activities towards the pursuit of planetary and intergenerational well-being, and is committed to taking social, ethical, economic, ecological and ecosystemic dimensions into account in its decisions, from an integrated perspective.
Today, more than ever, our actions and behaviour must be sustainable, even in our workplaces and not only in our homes, and must be aimed at respecting the environment and the health of the planet.