Communal scission has become an effective weapon against organized crime. After the respective councils were dissolved due to mafia infiltration, there has been an increase in differential collection and a decrease in both produced and indifferently collected waste. This is revealed by a study conducted by Lucio Masserini and Giulia Romano from the Department of Economics and Management at the University of Pisa, published in the Statistics and Public Policy journal.

The research arises within the framework of the Prin 2022 'Climbing the Waste Hierarchy: enabling factors and policies' project (Cliwep), funded by the European Union through NextGenerationEU and the Pnrr. The research is based on data collected from 2010 to 2020 in 5,960 Italian communes, in 88 of which the municipal council was dissolved due to suspected mafia infiltration. Regions where these cases are more concentrated are Calabria, Sicily, Puglia, and Campania, but Basilicata, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, and Lombardy also include them.

According to the research, differential collection began to improve after the dissolution and, between the fifth and seventh years, it increased by 12-13%. Simultaneously, annual household waste production has decreased by about 50-60 kilograms, while the indifferently collected waste has fallen by about 30 kilograms. 'We wanted to look not only at how much the differential collection increases, but also at what and which waste is produced,' explains Giulia Romano - The results show that, after some years, the dissolution and administrative restructuring accompany improvements in all three aspects studied, namely differential collection, total waste production, and indifferently collected waste. Reducing waste means, in fact, also reducing the material to be treated and smelted, and consequently, the opportunities for profit in a sector that can attract the interest of organized crime.' The project, concluded in December 2025, has studied the factors and policies that allow for better management of waste according to the European hierarchy.

Alongside the quantitative analysis published in the article, the research path included interviews with people with experience in access committees, experts on waste management and organized crime, and associations such as Libera. Associations, names and numbers against the mafia. Stefania Aoi, Marco Cimminella, Giulia Cimpanelli, Vito de Ceglia, Luigi Dell'Olio, Mario Di Ciommo, Silvano Di Meo, Sibilla Di Palma, Massimo Franzosi, Marco Frojo, Andrea Frollà, Mariano Mangia, Jessica Muller Castagliuolo Stefano Fiori phone: 0649822539 and email: stefano.fiori@repubblica.it, business affairs finance@repubblica.it.