The initiative is promoted by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Environment Park (EnviPark), in collaboration with Erion WEEE
On Friday 20 October, the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Environment Park (EnviPark) will host the Turin leg of the docufilm “Materia Viva“: a free initiative, open to all and sundry, to reflect on the crucial issue of the management of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and their strategic role in the circular economy of the near future. The screening will be held in the Kyoto Room of the Environment Park (Via Livorno, 58) from 6.30 p.m., preceded by institutional greetings from the City of Turin and a round table discussion with some of the film’s protagonists and representatives from the scientific world of IIT and Envipark active in research into the recovery of raw materials directly from electronic waste. From 20 to 27 October, moreover, thanks to the collaboration of Amiat Gruppo Iren, small WEEE will be collected, so that each citizen can make a contribution to the management of this type of waste.
“Materia Viva” is a docufilm produced by Libero Produzioni in cooperation with Erion WEEE (the Consortium of the Erion System that deals with the management of WEEE), which tells in a simple and direct way the relationship that each one of us has with electrical and electronic devices when they reach their end-of-life, also highlighting the potential that – in view of the circular economy – can derive from the proper disposal and recycling of this type of waste. Well-known faces from the worlds of entertainment and sport, as well as many experts from different points of view, will take turns on the film to explain why WEEE recycling is not only an increasingly urgent necessity, but also an increasingly important factor in the circular economy.
increasingly urgent, but also a strategic advantage and an opportunity for the economy. The work, which obtained the patronage of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Universities and Research, is one of the most important initiatives of the communication programme “DireFareRAEE”, which aims to inform on the topics of sustainability, circular economy and WEEE. It toured Italy with dozens of public screenings and received two awards at the Giffoni Film Festival and the 80th Venice International Film Festival.
IIT’s attention to the topic is demonstrated by the research being carried out at IIT’s Centre for Sustainable Future Technologies (CSFT) in Turin, coordinated by Fabrizio Pirri and with the involvement of researcher Annalisa Abdel Azim. The electronic components of electronic devices, both small and large household appliances, are manufactured from elements that are now defined as critical and strategic for the energy and digital transition. Among the Turin Centre’s sustainable objectives is to obtain raw material from EEE waste, WEEE, by means of a biological approach, using micro-organisms capable of first extracting and then recovering the metals contained within them using CO2 as an energy source. The strength of this bio-process lies precisely in the integration of a CO2 abatement and valorisation technology with that of recovering raw-material from highly available and rich waste such as WEEE.
