CO.RE.PLA (Via del Vecchio Politecnico 3, I-20121 Milan) is Italy´s largest collector of waste for recycling purposes and the second biggest in Europe. Last year it increased its recycling of packaging waste by 50,000 tonnes to 382,000t, a 15% improvement. Of this total, 245,000t resulted in reclaimed plastics, while 137,000t was burnt for energy recovery.

The reclaimed plastic comprised 110,000t from packaging originally made by Corepla, of which 90% was bottles and other forms of liquid containers, and 135,000t from packs made by other processors. To achieve this, Corepla has 47 collection centres and 17 sorting centres, with a total workforce of 2,000.

2000 has been defined as the year of recycled plastics in Italy with a target of at least 80% of packaging being recycled. If achieved, this would double both the volumes of recovered materials and the additional energy resources made available.

The north of Italy presently accounts for 70% of all recycling in Italy and, as a consequence, Corepla hopes to improve its coverage of the central and southern areas by 25% and 50%, respectively, during 2000. This will be helped by further agreements made with relevant producers, associations and industry. The company has agreed with the public authorities to pay 0,12-0,20 EUR/kg, depending on impurity levels, a total outlay of EUR 43m.

Corepla became the largest recycler in Italy last year when it took over the Replastic consortium. By 2002, it aims to recover 50% of all packaging materials in a country which already claims to be the European leader in recycling of post-consumer PET containers.