CONAI, Consorzio Nazionale Imballaggi, is a private consortium that operates on a non-profit basis and is private companies’ answer to the environmental problem of collecting and reusing packaging waste. It has more than one million member companies that produce or use packaging. It was established in 1997 by the Ronchi Decree (later replaced by Legislative Decree 152/06). It cooperates with municipalities under specific agreements governed by the Anci-Conai national framework agreement. It ensures cooperation among the six materials consortia: Ricrea (steel), Cial (aluminum), Comieco (paper and cardboard), Rilegno (wood), Corepla (plastic) and Coreve (glass). In 2013, he was a founder of EXPRA, which represents nonprofit packaging recycling organizations.

What is the CONAI contribution?

The CONAI contribution represents the form of financing through which CONAI apportions, between producers and users, the cost for the charges of separate collection, recycling and recovery of end-of-life packaging waste. These costs, required by Legislative Decree 152/06, are apportioned based on criteria such as proportion to total, weight and type of packaging material placed on the national market.

The purpose of the CONAI contribution is to incentivize the use of recyclable packaging. The level of contribution, in fact, is closely related to the environmental impact that end-of-life packaging produces. In the past, some concessions had already been introduced for reusable packaging used within controlled and particularly environmentally virtuous circuits.

Please note that the contribution diversification for plastic packaging came into effect on January 1, 2018, the contribution diversification for paper packaging on January 1, 2019

The following table shows the different contributions by material contributed.

Consortium rules stipulate that the amounts owed by all Consortium members, Producers and Users, are always levied, based on a specific indication in the invoice of the amount due on the basis of the weight and type of the packaging material subject to the first transfer. The first transfer is the transfer, even temporarily, within the national territory:

• of the finished packaging made by the last producer or dealer of empty packaging to the first user other than the dealer of empty packaging;
• of the packaging material carried out by a “producer of raw material (or semi-finished products)” to a “self-producer” who is or claims to be one.

It is because of its Greenpack and its R&D efforts to obtain recyclable packaging that Flessofab has been able to reduce its contribution to CONAI.