DEFINITION OF COMPOSTABILITY CRITERIA FOR PACKAGING - INITIATIVES IN ITALY

The management of solid waste is changing. The traditional approach ba sed on landfilling of mixed refuses is shifting toward a system based on the at-source sorting of waste into specific fractions. The biologi cal treatment of the organic fraction is considered to be an appropria te form of disposal not only for the ''traditional'' feedstock such as food scraps and vegetable and garden waste, but also for biodegradabl e packaging, when not recyclable in other ways. Any change from a comp lex system to another is difficult since many factors are to be organi zed and optimized. Industry must develop and manufacture compostable p roducts, municipalities must build composting plants and organize sour ce-separated collection, and regulatory bodies must define widely acce ptable criteria of compostability. In Europe, the European Union has a ssigned the last task to the CEN, to provide common criteria and avoid hindrance to commercial exchanges. In Italy the UNI, the national sta ndardization organization, has produced a working document to contribu te to the discussion on the European level. In this paper the UNI sche me is described.