The waste management lives with the contradiction in between the constantly increasing garbage production and the European utopia of the zero-waste economy. The European action plan for Circular Economy (COM 614-2) gives a new perspective for waste, not anymore as something to detach but as a resource that can be integrated inside the city. Even if waste is nowadays inexorably changing our landscape, citizens do not perceive the size of this problem until they feel damaged by the incinerator or the dump built in their proximity. Related to this, regional planners’ lack of foresight is to blame first, though the perception is made harder due to the inevitable location of waste management infrastructures at the edges of urban centers. Nowadays, there exist two scales of waste: the small one related to the households and the bigger one of the greater waste disposal plants.
Focusing on the case study of Ferrara’s territory, this research aims to investigate alternative solutions for disposal and recycling, taking advantage of waste management infrastructures and their presence in the surrounding landscape. Avoiding the common approach of compensation and mitigation, the project aims to find strategies on three different scales, filling the gap between the citizens and the big plants, in order to promote the social acceptance and integration of these infrastructures, creating a highly connected open network with the citizens and the territory.
