During the Re-think Circular Economy Forum event held last year in Taranto among the guests who spoke was Maurizio Cianci the CEO of ASECO S.p.A – Acquedotto Pugliese began his speech by sublining that not only did he want to recount the results achieved so far by Acquedotto Pugliese (AQP) and Aseco in the field of sewage sludge treatment and the organic fraction of Municipal solid waste, but also to bring to the general attention to what can still be done and the projects in the pipeline. Acquedotto Pugliese is the manager of the integrated water service in Puglia and in addition to providing excellent drinking water to its more than 4 million inhabitants, it tasks also includes the removal and treatment of sewage. It can be said that sewage sludge constitutes the most significant processing waste in AQP’s industrial process. Taking an overview of the amount of sewage sludge produced by AQP, it emerged that in 2009, the 183 managed sewage plants produced about 160 thousand tons per year and this amount has gradually increased to reach 250 thousand tons in 2016. This was a very significant growth trend which in 2017, led to an estimate in the absence of significant interventions in 2021, an amount of sewage sludge in the range of about 380 thousand tons would be produced. Interventions to contain and reverse this trend were necessary and, therefore, additional treatment sections were introduced downstream of the purification process, such as, to mention the most significant; high efficiency dewatering, natural greenhouse sludge drying, anaerobic digestion and cellular hydrolysis. Thanks to these interventions, Acquedotto Pugliese has been able to counteract the expected increase in the production of sewage sludge, even in the face of the strong efficiencies of the managed plants and the consequent strong increase in their...
Month: July 2022
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20 July 2022During the Circular Threads report presentation held last June, among the many speakers who spoke was Alessandro Canepa of Fratelli Piacenza, who told about the company and the TRICK project they are pursuing. Fratelli Piacenza was founded about 250 years ago and has naturally evolved a lot over the years. From 2017 to 2019, the company has had a 38 percent increase in turnover and has reached an average price of about 60 euros per meter, and it is continuously growing. This growth is also due to the fact that they work in both the men’s and women’s markets with a major effort to expand production capacity, but above all, service, because more than 35% of production is customized and therefore made specifically on customers’ requests. Customers of Fratelli Piacenza belong to the luxury world, so the company’s market is basically luxury, which has been growing strongly in recent years especially in the Middle East. Who are their customers? Those who are called “Henrys”, that is, those who have high purchasing and earning power, and they are also those customers who have a growing focus from a cultural point of view on sustainability issues and green issues in general. So, in essence, it is a trend with a strong impact on those who want to serve this type of market. The UNECE considered that for the production of green products, traceability is one of the essential factors, particularly in the value chain such as textiles, which is usually very long. As is already well known, the textile and fashion industries have a significant impact on the climate, when, however, Canepa pointed out, they do not adopt the correct policies to respect the environment. For example, there is a strong difference between consumption and use of water, in fact, he explained,...
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14 July 2022Companies, Organizations, Institutions, startups and research institutions presented their circular projects to foster the emergence of innovative and entrepreneurial activities in the Campania region and nationwide. 30 June – Museo DaDoM of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Milan, July 13, 2022 – Thursday, June 30, at the Darwin Dohrn Museum (DaDoM) of the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station in Napoli, the sixth edition of Re-think – Circular Economy Forum took place, in attendance by invitation and, for the general public, visible online. The guests were diverse, including institutions, research organizations, universities, startups and companies, both local, national and international, who presented their projects and entrepreneurial initiatives aimed at transforming the linear system in which we live into circular. It is possible to review the speakers’ presentations on Tondo’s page: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLarQF1QLckGyqp4Xin0PTRWitVkKhU1w- The circular economy was the core focus of the day, which began with greetings from the institutions and an introduction to the cultural change, thanks to the diffusion of new values, that must take place to facilitate the introduction of more sustainable practices and incentivize the circular transition. In addition, it discussed the link between innovation and the circular economy; which must start from re-design at the head of production processes, also thanks to the backing of institutions and supporting actors. The first thematic area covered was circular ports and tourism, a sector, particularly of interest to the city of Napoli. From the many insights emerged the need to change one’s approach, emphasizing how ports are the right places to implement the circular economy, how the problem of waste at sea is now an increasingly damaging issue for Italian coasts, and how tourism needs to be rethought more respectful of others and the environment. Late in the morning, the round table opened, an opportunity for dialogue between various technical and scientific...
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6 July 2022During the Re-think Circular Economy Forum Milan 2022 event, Valentina Cerolini, co-founder of Deesup, started her speech by presenting their reality. Deesup is a startup with its own interpretation of the value of Circular Economy (CE). They started the company some years ago while following their intuition, they found a gap in the market and they decided to fill it out. Cerolini stressed the fact that when they talk about market, they are talking about the luxury second-hand furniture market, which at that time was already huge in terms of size. At the moment, the estimates say that by 2025, the value of this market will reach about $16 billion, however, they already knew that the combination of CE model and the resale system they were adopting was becoming somehow mainstream. This is what happened as in many successful use cases, especially in the fashion industry such as for the famous acquisition of Depop from the American base Etsy. Zooming on furniture, Deesup characteristic, it is important to understand that this is the right moment for that and to offer the value through authenticity. Their team of expert curators select all the iconic second-hand items that arrive in the platform that helped also in creating a community of design lovers. With their work and innovation, they were able to build a community of about 30,000 users consisting of design lovers, architects, interior designers, gallerists that are interested in the platform products because they see the value of the circularity in this app as well as a secure payment. Deesup plays the role of the mediator between buyers and sellers ensuring them a very smooth process for selling and buying furniture items. From 2020, Cerolini continued, the startup experienced interesting booming years because people went through the pandemic and the houses...