Spreading culture and environmental awareness among students

29 September 2023 – For ten years, a group of teachers from the Marche and Emilia Romagna regions have been organising initiatives to promote books and reading as the most effective means of understanding and critically addressing the complexities of our times. These teachers are the beating heart of the Letteraria cultural association. Their main focus is on young people, without whom there can be no cultural renewal or development of innovative solutions to tackle the many problems facing society, first among which is the environmental crisis.

This is why Biorepack, the Italian national consortium for the organic recycling of biodegradable and compostable plastic packaging, has decided to support the association by sponsoring the tenth edition of the Letteraria Award. The competition, which will take place in the historic centre of Fano from October 6^th to 8^th 2023, will evaluate the 10 books selected by local high school students from those entered in recent months. Most importantly, all of the books submitted to Letteraria by authors and publishers during the selection phase will be donated to the libraries of the schools participating in the event.

“Having children who are well-informed, educated, encouraged to develop critical thinking and aware of the role that we all play in improving our society and our world, is essential to building a desirable future. Culture and awareness of our environmental impact go hand in hand,” said the president of Biorepack, Marco Versari. “This is clear to our consortium as we frequently organise initiatives and activities with schools at all levels to make our children and young people ‘awareness generators’. Through them we can help Italian families to correctly dispose of their organic waste and compostable materials, a vital action if we want to properly manage this key component of household waste, returning it to the soil as compost. Forming close ties with Letteraria, which has been investing in the new generations for years, was therefore a natural choice for us.”

Organic waste and compostable packaging make up 30-40% of total waste produced in Italian homes. Separate collection of these elements has been mandatory in Italy since January 2022. Thanks to the activities of Biorepack, the newest consortium in the CONAI system, last year Italy reached and surpassed the organic recycling targets for compostable bioplastics set for 2030: 60.7% (46,600 tonnes recycled out of 76,800 tonnes placed on the market). No fewer than 47% of all Italian municipalities are affiliated with the consortium, accounting for 64% of the national population.

The Emilia Romagna region is an outstanding example, where 95% of the municipalities are affiliated with Biorepack. As a region, the Marche has some ground to make up, its affiliations representing 61% of the municipalities and 63% of the population. The consortium still has to reach just under half a million inhabitants across 88 municipalities. Among these is Fano itself: “We are confident that the partnership with Letteraria will be an opportunity to bring this city into the Biorepack consortium and allow it to benefit from the financial contributions that its members receive in order to cover the costs of collecting, transporting and processing compostable bioplastics,” added Versari. “Local citizens would better appreciate how decisive the proper management of organic waste is in generating wealth for society and restoring fertility to agricultural lands, while also minimising the amount of waste going to landfills or incineration plants.”

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