New plastic depots have opened in Macchiareddu, but the municipalities are in crisis: "The emergency remains."

Starting tomorrow, new plastic storage areas will be operational in Macchiareddu. They were identified by the Cagliari Provincial Industrial Consortium (CACIP) and Tecnocasic and will open at 7:00 a.m., a day later than originally planned.

The island's plastic disposal problem, however, is far from resolved. The crisis didn't originate in Sardinia. The national plastic packaging recycling sector has been affected for months by the contraction of the recycled materials market and the slowdown in flows to recovery facilities. But the island's status, according to the Region, further exacerbates the effects of the crisis: it limits the ability to quickly resort to alternative facilities, increases transportation times and costs, and makes it more difficult to transfer material to facilities located off the island.

Starting tomorrow, excess plastic will be transferred by So.Ma Ricicla to its new facilities in Macchiareddu. At the same time, the company will resume receiving new quantities of plastic packaging from participating municipalities, according to a progressive and scheduled order.

The regional Department of the Environment announced this. Macchiareddu will have room for approximately one thousand tons.   In parallel, it is   the authorization process has been started to make available an additional storage volume, estimated at several thousand tons , which it is hoped will become operational in early September."

The opening of the new spaces will not return the situation to normal. Many municipalities continue to face difficulties in managing accumulated plastic , rearranging calendars, and organizing flows.

An initial positive sign concerned outgoing flows. Corepla (National Consortium for the Collection, Recycling, and Recovery of Plastic Packaging) has reportedly arranged for materials to be allocated to sorting centers located throughout Italy. This move should allow approximately 600 tons of plastic to be shipped out of Sardinia , thus freeing up space for regional suppliers.

"This initial transfer is necessary," the department states, "but it is not yet sufficient to guarantee the stability of the system . The actual duration of the new spaces at Macchiareddu cannot be calculated based solely on incoming quantities: it will depend primarily on the regularity and consistency of outgoing flows. Without a continuous collection schedule, with volumes and destinations appropriate to the quantity of collected material, any predictions regarding the duration of available capacity would be technically unreliable."

"Thanking the mayors isn't just a formality," says Rosanna Laconi, Regional Councilor for Environmental Protection. "They are on the front lines managing the consequences of a crisis they didn't cause and can't resolve alone."

"The emergency is not over," he concludes. "It will only be over when regular, continuous, and adequate outflows are restored. Until the government addresses the critical issues in the national supply chain and Corepla guarantees a reliable recall schedule, the problem will not only remain open, but it risks worsening."