Organic fraction of municipal solid waste valorisation in southern Italy: the stakeholders' contribution to a long-term strategy definition

The management of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) is a complex matter, where the involvement of all relevant stakeholders can play a crucial role in supporting policymakers in defining an effective and long-running waste management plan at the local level. This paper deals with the difficulties related to the scarce collaboration and commitment of stakeholders involved in OFMSW collection and management, which mainly affects the regions located in the southern part of Italy. Starting from these premises, the aim of the study was to test an approach for involving stakeholders in the definition of a long-term strategy to address a complex issue, such as OFMSW valorisation. For this purpose, participatory backcasting was used to allow stakeholders to describe their desired future, and working backwards to identify the policy actions needed to achieve that future. Specifically, this paper focusses on the OFMSW's valorisation of the municipality of Foggia (Southern Italy), which is representative of the lagging behind in waste management. The experiment led to a strategy based on OFMSW valorisation involving bio-methane and the production of digestate, through which it will be possible to reduce the quantity of waste disposed in landfills. To investigate the suitability of the proposed approach, a questionnaire for measuring the level of influence of participants on the workshop results and the quality of the final strategy was submitted. Participants expressed a strong degree of empowerment in the identification of actions and their arrangement on the timeline. Overall, the experience proved that the suggested approach fostered the stakeholders' contribution to the long-term strategy definition for OFMSW management. However, this draft strategy needs to be further elaborated to be implemented. In addition, the validation scores demonstrated a positive effect on the democratization of policymaking. Therefore, the proposed backcasting could be considered a valuable approach for supporting policymakers, especially in regions affected by the scarce engagement of people towards environmental protection. In this way, local governments may adopt this tool to improve their waste management plans.