Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The municipal waste sector has entered a decisive phase of its reform with the Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment (ARERA) which in the summer of 2025 approved four measures destined to profoundly change the rules and management logic: Waste tariff method for the third regulatory period 2026-2029 (MTR3, Resolution 5 August 2025, 397/2025/R/rif), Integrated Text of Waste Management Service Fees (TICSER), containing the criteria for tariff breakdown for users (Resolution 5 August 2025, 396/2025/R/rif), Regulation of technical quality in the municipal waste sector (RQTR, Resolution 29 July 2025, 374/2025/R/rif) and provisions regarding accounting separation obligations (TIUC – Integrated Text of Accounting Unbundling) for the municipal waste sector. (Resolution of July 29, 2025, 373/2025/R/RIF). In summary, the new MTR3 confirms the MTR2 framework for defining the regulation of tariff revenues for the integrated municipal waste management service, as well as access fees to treatment plants, for the new regulatory period 2026-2029, but introduces significant refinements. It radically reforms Presidential Decree 158/99 by introducing a pentanomie tariff applicable nationwide. The RQTR defines new and innovative technical quality indicators. Finally, the Resolution on Accounting Separation contains the Authority's guidelines for the development of accounting and administrative separation guidelines in the municipal waste sector. The process had been planned since 2019, as the Authority, in its first strategic program, had outlined its intention to work on three regulatory pillars—Quality, Accounting Separation, and Tariffs—to build a coherent and stable framework, proposing an ideal roadmap. Today, these pillars are consolidated into an integrated framework that aims to organize the technical, economic, and accounting aspects of tariffs. This framework is destined to structurally "change" the future of the sector and will require unprecedented preparation and adaptation from managers and local authorities, with the goal of making the service more efficient, transparent, and sustainable. To reap the benefits, managers will need to use the available time to reorganize processes and systems, not only to be compliant but to strengthen their operational efficiency and competitiveness. The next two and a half years will therefore be crucial, with planning, testing, and dialogue between authorities and managers to arrive fully prepared for 2028. Behind the technical complexity, the reform brings a clear vision that calls for overcoming management fragmentation, favouring optimal territorial areas, gradually moving towards more equitable and sustainable point-based tariffs, and integrating management control and regulatory systems. The reform therefore promotes a vision of the waste sector evolving toward supra-municipal tariff areas that apply the corresponding tariff. By applying the corresponding tariff, the ETCs (Territorially Competent Bodies) will be able to focus on their own governance functions, entrusting all operational management activities to the operator. They will no longer have to prepare their own PEF (Economic and Financial Plan) or fulfill contractual quality obligations, thus exposing themselves to the risk of sanctions from ARERA. This will also reduce the administrative burden on their offices for regulatory compliance. With supra-municipal tariff and management frameworks (a single contract and a single, uniform tariff for users), it will also be possible to foster efficiency and service quality through economies of scale and industrial capacity, efficient and cost-effective contractual quality, and reduced risk of sanctions.
Source: Ingegneria dell'Ambiente
Institution: University Carlo Cattaneo
Language: Italian
Subfield: Waste Management and Disposal
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7218779487