Over 200 tyres abandoned in a forest. We are in Marano Principato, province of Cosenza, where tomorrow Legambiente and EcoTyre will kick off the first of a new series of extraordinary interventions to free various areas from ELTs: the acronym stands for End of Life tyres, special waste whose abandonment into the environment constitutes a long-standing and complex issue, both in economic, operational and logistical terms. A partnership that is renewed for the ninth year in a row, that between the environmental association and the EcoTyre consortium, specialized in starting the correct recovery of ELTs, and which also for 2020 will participate in Puliamo il Mondo, the Italian edition of largest environmental volunteer event in the world (Clean up the World) organized by Legambiente for the next 25, 26 and 27 September.
The stage that will anticipate the weekend of cleaning cities, coasts and green spaces from waste (scheduled in full compliance with the anti-Covid regulations) will be the small Calabrian municipality, where the territorial circles of Legambiente have made a particular effort to counteract the massive abandonment of ELTs, while EcoTyre has taken full responsibility for the costs for their recovery. As many as 85 - of which 40 in Calabria - the interventions carried out during these nine years of collaboration, for a total of 190 thousand kilograms of ELTs collected in almost all regions of Italy. For 2020 EcoTyre has made itself available to carry out about twenty free extraordinary withdrawals, in every part of Italy: some municipalities and clubs of Legambiente have already identified the sites from which to remove the ELTs and have requested their withdrawal, in particular in Calabria and Sicily. Any other request must be sent to EcoTyre by 9 October, which will guarantee the collection and start of the correct treatment and recovery of the ELTs collected by the volunteers.
ELTs represent a real resource because they can be 100% recovered: thanks to the EcoTyre project “From Rubber to Rubber” it is now possible to reuse the granule from ELTs for the production of other tyres and other rubber materials. The next goal of the Consortium is to increase the percentage of use of the granule inside tyres. Their correct management of ELTs is therefore a fundamental part of our country's circular economy. "Our multi-year partnership with EcoTyre allows us to do an extraordinary job in the territories burdened by a problem that is difficult to manage, and from the point of view of costs, and from the logistical and operational point of view - explains Stefano Ciafani, national president of Legambiente - Especially in the case of small administrations, the intervention of our clubs and the identification of particularly critical situations are crucial in the recovery of tyres that have reached the end of their life cycle and indiscriminately abandoned in the environment, or in areas that require particular attention in the collection phase. The network work and the contribution of EcoTyre are therefore fundamental in collecting and starting the ELTs for the correct treatment and recovery, an intervention which, we remind you, takes place at no cost for the institutions' coffers. and that also in 2020 will affect numerous centers, on the occasion of our now usual appointment with Clean Up the World, in a special edition that calls on everyone, citizens and volunteers, to roll up their sleeves and leave together, cleaning up not only the cities, but for the first time also beaches and river banks ".
“We also confirm for 2020 - declared Enrico Ambrogio, President of EcoTyre - the partnership with Legambiente and our support for Puliamo il Mondo. In these nine years of collaboration, we have collected thousands of ELTs, some located in places that are difficult to reach, think of the karst ridge more than 100 meters deep or the Sentiero del Tracciolino, where donkeys were used because the passage of any means of transport transportation was impossible. We strongly believe in these initiatives because we respect our Planet and because they allow us to meet many people, volunteers, citizens, children, with whom we can talk and explain to them face to face what we can do for the environment while respecting the ELT recovery chain. . We will never stop reiterating it: ELTs can be managed in a sustainable way through the work of consortia like ours that guarantee free collection to tyre dealers and workshops that deal with tyre changes ".
The collaboration with Puliamo il Mondo falls within the "PFU Zero" project, sponsored by the Ministry of the Environment and the Protection of the Territory and the Sea, which aims to create and have a mapping of abandoned depots of reported End of Life tyres available. by local authorities, associations and citizens. Extraordinary collections are carried out totally free of charge and at no cost to local administrations.