“It is our pleasure to reveal that the early results of the experiment conducted by Seveso Municipality with Gelsia Ambiente are positive. Thanks to the cooperation of citizens, there has been a considerable increase in recycling. The less you throw away, the less you pay is the philosophy underpinning the project. The Region is looking at it with sincere interest.” Said regional councillor for the Environment, Energy and Sustainable Development, Claudia Maria Terzi, about the presentation on “Results and opportunities for the collection of solid urban waste: the case of Seveso”, at Palazzo Pirelli. “This project,” explained the councillor, “is interesting as the experiment was conducted in a town representing the typical Lombardy town, not too big like Milan, and yet not too small, and with an average population of over 20,000. If the experiment worked in a town like Seveso, the model can certainly be replicated in lots of other towns.” Gelsia Ambiente, the municipality-owned company that provides environmental services in over 30 municipalities in Brianza, gave families in Seveso a pack of special semi-transparent blue bags for collecting dry waste containing an electronic chip (tag) with a code for each user. On collection days, the bags left in the street are placed by waste collectors in vehicles equipped with a reader that scans the code and transfers the data to a central piece of software, which processes the quantity of waste actually produced by each citizen such as to apply a personalised fee following the principle of pollute more, pay more. The project was promoted by a targeted communication campaign entitled “Un sacco giusto” (The right bin bag) and educational activities about the environment for children of different age groups. This project was born in response to the fact that bin bags contain 60% of waste that could be recycled. On balance, therefore, the introduction of the blue bin bag reduces the production of unrecyclable waste and its related disposal costs while increasing the percentage of separate waste collection and revenue generating from the disposal of the different waste types collected.