The Conai Environmental Contribution

The CAC (Contributo Ambientale Conai): The Conai Environmental Contribution

The CAC (Conai Environmental Contribution) is established for each type of packaging material and represents the form of financing through which the Consorzio Nazionale Imballaggi – Conai distributes the costs of separate collection, recycling and recovery of packaging waste between producers and users.

The Environmental Contribution is applied each time packaging is placed on the market and is applied at the time of the “first sale”:

• when the finished packaging changes hands from the Producer to the User

or

• when the packaging changes hands from an Importer to a User
• when full packaging is imported

The costs involved in collection, recycling and recovery of packaging are determined on the basis of the General Programme for Prevention and Management, drawn up on the basis of the Prevention Programmes of supply chain consortia, including CIAL.

Conai redistributes the amount of the contributions, paid by the companies and related to each material, to the relevant supply chain consortia, after deducting the costs necessary for its own operation and that of the National Waste Observatory.

Regulatory references applicable to the Conai Environmental Contribution (CAC)

Compulsory payment of the Conai Environmental Contribution is required under articles 38 and 41 of Legislative Decree 22/1997.

In particular, Article 41, paragraph 2, states that these costs must be allocated “in proportion to the total quantity, weight and type of packaging material placed on the national market, net of the quantities of used packaging reused in the previous year for each type of material”.

The same principle is taken up and developed in the Conai Articles of Association and Regulations. In particular, article 14 of the Conai Articles of Association specifies that “the sums due by all the Consortium members, Producers and Users, are always taken, on the basis of a specific indication on the invoice of the amount due and the type of packaging material to be transferred, by the Consortium member who makes the first transfer to a User in the national territory”.

Amount of Environmental Contribution per material

Article 7, paragraph 2, of the Conai Regulation states that: “… The Conai Environmental Contribution (…) is thus determined, on the basis of the General Programme for the prevention and management of packaging and packaging waste and in relation to the costs of separate collection, recycling and recovery of primary packaging waste, or in any case delivery to the separate collection service, for each type of material…”.

The amount of the Environmental Contribution on Aluminium packaging, as of 1 January 2019, is 15.00 euro/tonne.

A complete guide to the Conai contribution in two volumes, updated to the year 2020, may be downloaded below:
the first volume contains the regulations, procedures and explanatory diagrams
the second volume contains the necessary forms.