With the arrival of the Covid-19 epidemic in Europe, the market for illegal waste trafficking has become increasingly flourishing.
In recent months, due to the strong involvement of the mafias in the health sector, some anomalies have been recorded.
About a year ago, with the operation called "Green Tuscany", a criminal association was discovered which trafficked in hazardous waste from Italy to China via Slovenia.
The investigation was linked to an investigation by the Italian National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor's Office into the illicit trafficking of textile waste leaving from the ports of Genoa, Livorno and Trieste to reach Africa.
The companies involved in this illegal activity also acted as brokers and transporters in a parallel system of international waste trafficking.
We talk about the topic with the criminologist Vincenzo Musacchio.
Is it true, Professor, that there is a high risk of mafia infiltration in the disposal of medical waste?
Over two thousand million tons of waste are produced in the European Union every year, of which over forty million tons are classified as hazardous.
The new less stringent regulations, the increase in prices for legally disposing of waste and the restrictions due to the Coronavirus, lead the mafias to enter the sector more easily by offering attractive conditions and prices which then create an illicit, parallel and hidden market.
In this environment, the mafias play a decisive role: they agree with businesses, providing them with the concrete opportunity to maximize profits, while minimizing costs.
In 2020 and 2021, the production of medical waste grew by 16 and 20% compared to 2019. According to the latest data from the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (Ispra),
in 2020, 232 thousand tons of medical waste would have been produced in Italy, of which approximately 208 thousand of hazardous waste, most of which produced in the northern regions (49%).
These figures concern the waste produced by public and private health facilities and are based on the information contained in the single model of environmental declaration.
Due to the Sars-Cov2 pandemic, most of the hazardous medical waste (almost 176 thousand tons) was classified as infectious risk, with an increase of 23.4% compared to 2019.
These figures concern the waste produced by public and private health facilities and are based on the information contained in the single model of environmental declaration.
Due to the Sars-Cov2 pandemic, most of the hazardous medical waste (almost 176 thousand tons) was classified as infectious risk, with an increase of 23.4% compared to 2019.
These figures concern the waste produced by public and private health facilities and are based on the information contained in the single model of environmental declaration.
Due to the Sars-Cov2 pandemic, most of the hazardous medical waste (almost 176 thousand tons) was classified as infectious risk, with an increase of 23.4% compared to 2019.
What type of medical waste are we referring to?
To fall into this group, no analysis is necessary: the origin of the waste is sufficient.
Everything that has come into contact with biological material or that comes from departments that treat infectious diseases is at risk of infection.
Infectious risk hospital waste is waste of a medical nature, contaminated by biological liquids such as blood and various secretions, or waste that comes from environments and patients in infectious isolation: gauze, gloves, cannulas, drainage, catheters, drips, masks.
All waste contaminated with infected faeces and urine, such as diapers, but also sharps waste such as needles, blades and syringes are also included in infectious risk medical waste.
All this waste must be managed, handled and disposed of according to precise procedures established by current legislation.
Where is this waste disposed of?
They must be disposed of by incineration in plants authorized to treat special waste, taking care to load them directly into the furnace, avoiding mixing with other categories of waste.
Many loads of this type of waste unfortunately travel throughout Italy and move from region to region.
From north to south but also in other European countries.
To then be set on fire or poured into illegal quarries and warehouses.
Environmental crimes are worryingly extensive and damage not only the national territory but also the European one, thus threatening the health of citizens.
They have become increasingly frequent and increasingly transnational because they are not only businesses in the hands of the mafias, but also involve a part of entrepreneurship.
Who are the subjects involved in these crimes?
There is the entrepreneur who aims to dispose of his waste illegally to increase his earnings or to pay less taxes.
There are those who work in situations of the market and undeclared work and therefore cannot get rid of them legally.
Local administrations and public companies forced to work in constant emergency sometimes even unknowingly turn to organized crime.
The new mafias today no longer operate with violence and intimidation but make use of white collars and corruptive tools.
The new mobsters operate legally through their companies and present themselves as "brokers" for waste management and disposal services, offering much lower prices than other existing companies on the legal market.
Hazardous waste, often very toxic,
which pretend to recycle end up in illegal landfills scattered throughout Europe.
The most serious risk is that with this method the waste returns to the environment in a different form and with extremely dangerous toxic potential (think of a tomato field on land used as an illegal dump).
The same plastic or similar materials can pose a threat to human health if they are not subjected to the correct reconversion process.
In the period of Covid-19, therefore, of economic crisis, saving money can be a necessity, for which, in the various industrial sectors, the demand for illegal waste disposal services is growing.
The mafias know what and how to do to identify companies and industries in crisis by offering them specialized services precisely in low-cost waste management.
The companies involved in such activities are often accomplices – in some cases by prior arrangement – of organized crime.
The new mafias are well organized among themselves and ours, for example, have close contacts with all the other criminal associations rooted in the Member States of the European Union.
Hazardous waste is usually transferred to a compliant Member State (eg Slovenia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania).
Do emergency situations favor this business?
Emergencies are godsend for the mafias.
In the private sector, businesses are at the center of trafficking, while in the public sector there are mainly local administrations and companies (Municipalities and Local Health Authorities in primis).
The needs of both can also be satisfied thanks to the immediate intervention of organized crime.
How can this trafficking be stopped?
Trying to hinder contacts between the mafias and white-collar workers in every part of the world.
By maximizing interstate collaboration because the new mafias are transnational.
It will be necessary to involve all the national, European and international institutions in this struggle and to assiduously sensitize public opinion.
The emergency linked to waste disposal often becomes permanent and feeds on itself in prolonged crisis situations.
The greatest risks come mainly from subcontracting, the maximum discount and the lack of transparency.
This sector will therefore need to be controlled effectively.
The lack of disposal facilities does not help.
The increase in passages, both due to subcontracting for disposal and for the transport of waste,
it increases the costs for the State and criminality takes advantage of this, exploiting each phase also to launder its own dirty money.
Now states have the need to dispose of huge quantities of medical waste.
These are hazardous materials, which have the incinerator as their only destination.
We therefore need greater traceability, because crime has been doing profitable business in this sector for too long.
Vincenzo Musacchio, forensic criminologist, jurist, associated with the Rutgers Institute on Anti-Corruption Studies (RIACS) in Newark (USA).
He is an independent researcher and member of the Higher School of Strategic Studies in Organized Crime of the Royal United Services Institute in London.
In his career he was a pupil of Giuliano Vassalli, a friend and collaborator of Antonino Caponnetto, an Italian magistrate known for having led the anti-mafia pool with Falcone and Borsellino in the second half of the eighties.
He is among the most accredited scholars of the new transnational mafias.
Expert in strategies for fighting organized crime.
Author of numerous essays and of a monograph published in fifty-four countries written with Franco Roberti entitled "The fight against the new mafias fought at a transnational level".