The removal of material from the seabed and from the bottom of brackish bodies of water is necessary to maintain downflow conditions, to ensure navigability and port accessibility, to collect sands for coastal nourishment, to guarantee coastal protection, to help habitat development or enhancement, to pick contaminated sediments up, to promote land reclamation. And examples could go on. However, both the dredging operations and the management of the resulting materials have the potential to cause relevant damages to the environment, especially in coastal and marine contexts, where ecosystems are fragile and vulnerable. Dredged materials, in particular, have been considered for a very long time nothing more than a waste meant for disposal. Now the time has come to move from the ‘disposal approach’ to the ‘waste recovery’ or, even better, to the ‘waste can be a non-waste’ ones. Unfortunately, the management of dredged materials reveals itself as committed to a congeries of rules, which build up a framework of law that appears plainly fragmentary and incoherent. The road is still long (and winding).
The management of dredged materials: the «long and winding road» from waste to resource
Ilaria Lolli
2020-01-01
Abstract
The removal of material from the seabed and from the bottom of brackish bodies of water is necessary to maintain downflow conditions, to ensure navigability and port accessibility, to collect sands for coastal nourishment, to guarantee coastal protection, to help habitat development or enhancement, to pick contaminated sediments up, to promote land reclamation. And examples could go on. However, both the dredging operations and the management of the resulting materials have the potential to cause relevant damages to the environment, especially in coastal and marine contexts, where ecosystems are fragile and vulnerable. Dredged materials, in particular, have been considered for a very long time nothing more than a waste meant for disposal. Now the time has come to move from the ‘disposal approach’ to the ‘waste recovery’ or, even better, to the ‘waste can be a non-waste’ ones. Unfortunately, the management of dredged materials reveals itself as committed to a congeries of rules, which build up a framework of law that appears plainly fragmentary and incoherent. The road is still long (and winding).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
