Ambiente e gestione dei rifiuti: l'obbligo di realizzare gli impianti alla luce delle direttive europee

Waste management, one of the relevant aspects of the issue of environmental protection, is regulated by a dense web of provisions, first and foremost, of a European Union matrix. This contribution addresses one of the profiles of that management, the availability of an infrastructure network. It is the subject of Article 16 of Directive 2008/98 EC on waste. After a brief historical overview of the first forms of positivisation of provisions relating to the provision of facilities for waste management, the analysis focuses on the aforementioned article with the aim of understanding what obligation can be deduced from it for the Member States. To this end, the investigation first highlights the theoretical aspects of the obligation to implement EU directives, also in light of the Court of Justice's extensive case law on the subject. The analysis then dwells on the various segments of Art. 16, and in particular on the principles of self-sufficiency and proximity, arriving at a proposal for the framing of the infrastructural obligation derivable from the provision. The reconstructive hypothesis is finally examined on the basis of two rulings with which the EU Court of Justice decided two different actions for failure to fulfil obligations brought by the European Commission against the Italian Republic, the ruling of 4 March 2010, and the ruling of 16 July 2015.