Management of Excavated Soil and Rocks as waste: Plan and Small Construction Sites

Source: www.ediltecnico.it

Final go-ahead for the regulation that simplifies the management of excavated earth and rocks. To start the management of excavated earth and rocks extracted on construction sites for construction work, classified, as we know, as by-products (and not as waste), it will no longer be necessary to wait for authorizations, it will be enough to wait 90 days after the filing of the application. The mechanism will be similar to the SCIA, and therefore silence-consent is envisaged.

This is the main novelty of the new consolidated text on the management of excavated earth and rocks, but it is certainly not the only one. All the amendments, in fact, aim to bring order to a matter in which different regulations have often overlapped, even with obvious contradictions, reorganizing everything in a single and coherent reference text. For example, in addition to the clarification and simplification of all definitions, faster procedures and simplified rules will be provided for small construction sites.

This new regulation therefore has, first of all, the effect of repealing several regulations, including Ministerial Decree no. 161 of 2012 (which contains rules for larger construction sites), article 41 of Decree-Law no. 69 of 2013 (which contains simplified rules for smaller construction sites), the amendments brought by decree no. 133/2014 and the passages of the Environmental Code (art. 184 bis and 266 paragraph 7 of Legislative Decree no. 152 of 2006) dedicated to the issue. Everything will be collected in this Presidential Decree and both operators and institutional subjects in charge of controls will therefore have a clear regulatory regime at their disposal.

The decree therefore concerns:

• the management of excavated earth and rocks qualified as by-products from small and large construction sites;
• the regulation of the temporary storage of excavated earth and rocks;
• the use on the production site of excavated earth and rocks excluded from the waste regulations;
• the management of excavated earth and rocks in the sites subject to reclamation.

Excavated earth and rocks, the news of the Presidential Decree

• A general simplification of the procedures is envisaged, together with certain deadlines for concluding them, in order to overcome any situations of inertia on the part of public offices.
• Faster procedures are envisaged to certify that excavated earth and rocks meet the requirements established by national and European standards to be qualified as by-products and not as waste (and, therefore, be reused).
• A precise definition of the conditions of use of excavated earth and rocks within the site subject to reclamation is envisaged, with the identification of unique procedures for excavations and the characterization of the land generated by the works to be carried out in the sites subject to reclamation.
• It is established that the control system will be strengthened and the previous regulations will be safeguarded for projects or plans of use approved according to the old regulations.
• As for small construction sites (under 6 thousand cubic meters in total) there will be even more simplified rules: a substitute declaration will be sufficient to start the opening of the construction sites, “at least fifteen days before the start of the excavation works”.