Visitando Ecomondo per la prima volta / Visiting Ecomondo for my very first time

Come promesso, ecco qui in breve come è stata la mia prima visita ad Ecomondo.
Un lungo resoconto che la mia carissima amica blogger 'MadreTerra' ha voluto pubblicare integralmente sul suo blog sempre ricco di idee 'verdi', aggiornato sulle notizie che riguardano l'ambiente. Ringrazio l'autrice che mi ha ospitata, che con la sua grande sensibilità ecologica mi stupisce ogni giorno col suo lavoro. Continua così!
E a voi buona lettura!
As promised, here there's a brief about my first visit to Ecomondo.
A long report that my dear friend blogger 'MadreTerra' wanted to publish on her blog always full of 'green' ideas, updated on news concerning the environment. I want to thank the author that hosted my post, with her great ecological sensitivity that surprises me every day with her work. Well done!
And to you, enjoy reading below!

Sabato 8 novembre si è concluso Ecomondo, 12° Fiera Internazionale del Recupero di Materia ed Energia e dello Sviluppo Sostenibile, in contemporanea con Key Energy, Fiera internazionale per l’Energia e la Mobilità Sostenibile, il Clima e le Risorse per un Nuovo Sviluppo.
Ci sono stati quasi 65.000 visitatori totali, il 12% in più rispetto allo scorso anno, un trend che è costantemente in aumento. Oltre 1000 aziende hanno esposto i loro prodotti e servizi dedicati all’ambiente, c’è stata anche una massiccia presenza dei media e questo fa sperare bene.

[...] leggi la versione integrale qui

L’augurio che faccio ad Ecomondo, quest’evento che per quattro giorni ha letteralmente stravolto la città di Rimini, è che in futuro diventi un evento nazionale sempre più grande, coinvolgendo allo stesso modo aziende, autorità e cittadini, affinché si possa collaborare insieme per la conservazione e il rispetto di questo unico mondo in cui viviamo.

Saturday, 8 November, Ecomondo, the 12th International Trade Fair of Material & Energy Recovery and Sustainable Developement, in contemporary with Key Energy, International Trade Fair for Energy and Sustainable Mobility, Climate and Resources for New Development, ended. There were nearly 65,000 total visitors, 12% more than the last year, a trend that is steadily increasing. More than 1,000 companies exhibited their products and services dedicated to the environment, there was a massive media presence and I hope this is good.

During the four days many topics were discussed: waste and packaging complete cycle, rehabilitation of polluted areas, water cycle and analysis of integrated systems of water control, renewable energy and efficiency, energy markets, hydrogen and sustainable mobility, air quality, risk and environmental damage, services for environment, national and international responsibility for protecting the environment. In short, an appointment rather than single, addressed primarily to professionals and businesses from Europe and Many countries around the world.

Certainly many simple ‘curious’ visited this international exhibition too. For non-experts in the field a vast panorama of technologies has first deployed in their eyes. Noting those things, you can be very hopeful that, in all industrial areas, a decisive change in positive, regarding attention to environmental issues, will happen very soon.

Obviously in a single day, the last, it was difficult to me visiting all stands, especially because many stands were emptied with before the closure. The fair is huge (about 85,000 square meters) and this year has occupied all pavilions, 16 available in all. Each pavilion, hosted in diverse sections devoted to specific ‘Special projects’, was interspersed by parking areas and very interesting exhibitions, especially for the curious.

Beginning from the latter, I can admit, for my professional way to see things, to have been attracted mainly by the hall and many corners of the pavilions dedicated to ‘Eco Fatto’, an overview on manufacturers and designers of recycling, where you can admire masterpieces of industrial design and manufactured goods, made with more unthinkable materials: chaise longue, desks, chairs and library wavy board made, by ‘Idee di cartone’, the aluminium benches, or the pans, the ‘Ricicletta’ in 100% recycled aluminium, the modern tire bags realized by designer Heidi, recycled glass sculptures and additions furnishing, with candles in glass and wax, with armchairs, walkways, playgrounds and off made by recycled plastic, to comfortable and colourful ottomans always made by inner tubes ... In short, there’s a well of new materials and creative ideas. I am naturally tempted to ask myself: “Who said that recycled objects are bad?”

Starting from the west entrance of the fair I were able coming into the ‘Save!’ exposition. I was immediately amazed at the sight of huge machinery and trucks dedicated to waste recovery and cleaning. I add that, seeing the huge amount of these technologies, I had the impression that we are still very far away from the idea of little compaction robot that recently made us laughing and reflecting to the cinema. Waste is something very cumbersome and in some cases very heavy ... from our home garbage is very difficult to realize it and here you cannot help but notice!

Walking in zigzag between corridors, you continue entering into local and international reality, having a more deep knowledge of companies that provide environmental services: for example, I can cite regional Hera, which has set up a huge container stand, as “Hera House”, an interesting virtual corridor, set for calculate your household consumes.
It was also interesting to hear some examples of ‘ecological islands’ furniture, super-equipped for the collection of hazardous and bulky waste such as WEEE (electrical and electronic equipment waste). A waste to which Ecomondo has dedicated a series of special conferences, titled “WEEE system”, to know and discuss new rules on their disposal.
Each service company not only had showcase of their technologies, but has also provided data, information, and everything can serve to experts in the field and not, for better moving on disposal of waste.

In the main exhibition, to give a value to the “Waste as resource”, it was given space to technologies for the recovery of various types of waste: in particular scrap metal (with the ‘MetalEco’project), the inert construction and demolition (the ‘Inter Tech’ project), rubber and pneumatic equipment (the ‘Just Rubber’ project), waste derived from computing products (‘Ri3, Regenerate, Reload, Reuse’ project), and WEEE. But there have been numerous stand on organic waste, with demonstrations on industrial and household composting, wood, with the exhibition of recycled wood artefacts, paper and cardboard, exhausted oils and glass. The plastic has not been ruled out, indeed one of the few areas in which you could see live how some systems separation mechanics, currently on the market, work, especially for those who are incredulous about how the recycling is after collection.
It was also curious to see how, in almost all the stands, waste is transformed into perfectly usable materials, with the exposure of samples by all sorts, from copper extracted from cables and reduced into powder, to the various types of plastic granules.

Other large exhibition spaces (interesting for the professionals, somewhat less for the curious) have been dedicated to businesses that reclaimed territories and waste water (in-depth projects ‘Reclaim Expo’ and ‘Blue Gold’) that exposed available technologies and facilities, types of assistance, rehabilitation techniques, used products.
No less noteworthy but still facing the industry, were stands of exhibitors on renewable energies such as solar, photovoltaic, wind, biogas and bio fuel.

Among the major pavilions, some rooms have hosted the communication exhibitions on ‘Sustainable Cities’, interesting paths in private architecture and urban design thought with sustainability criteria, recovery and energy saving. Looking at the exhibition panels, masterfully made with cardboard and pallets from recovery, you had the impression of being significantly at the cutting edge of design and technology, but still far from the time when these architectures will be easily accessible to every type of citizen.

There was also a way to the island location of ‘Sustainable Purchases’. A section I imagined wider, but it offered a good number sold greener products, including solar gadget, office tools made of recycled or compostable material, cleaning and hygiene greener products, accessories and clothes from Fair Trade, themed books and toys by natural materials.

I must include the large space devoted to Conip (National Plastic Packaging Consortium) and Conai (National Packaging Consortium), the last with its wide range of areas, Cial (aluminium), Comieco (paper), Rilegno (wood), Corepla (plastic), Coreve (glass) and the National Steel Consortium. Together with Tetrapak Italy – who finally showed the recycling products by carton coupled to plastic aluminium packaging, ‘Carta Frutta ®’ and ‘Ecoallene ®’ – all have made available numerous paper advertising campaigns that unfortunately at the end of the fair, were abandoned, becoming waste itself. They could be collected and redistributed to local schools, at best and I hope that at least they have been recycled!

Really this edition, which has not overlooked any detail and every minimum area related to environment, could in turn generate countless other events in order to deepen knowledge in every single part.
I must admit, though, that I hadn’t a good impression seeing the general flee of the exhibitors as early as the first Saturday afternoon, when common people, who normally work outside the context of the sectors concerned, could deepen their knowledge of a world in which they are still bound by and still treated as if they were not a key component for the correct cycle of materials.
I would have liked that the fair had lasted until Sunday, involving both schools (for which there were numerous laboratories), the ‘curious’ visitors, perhaps viewers even more important than political and TV show authorities, here invited. I would have liked to talk directly with the experts in the field and not to turn between the empty benches for scraping written information, and I would have liked to see evolving Ecomondo in the years, involving many more people and organizations.
I wish to Ecomondo – this event that for four days literally upset the city of Rimini – that in the future it will become a national event ever larger, involving at the same time companies, authorities and citizens, so that we can work together for preservation and respect of this unique world in which we live.

Data source 

Ecco le foto!

Here the photos!