WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY SICILY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #457 - Versalis dispute ---- Out of blackmail, with concrete proposals (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 In the past issues of "Dialogo" we have dealt with the Versalis dispute,

noting how, in the face of an alarming picture, which sees hundreds of
jobs being called into question, there has been no adequate mobilization
to nail Versalis/ENI to its responsibilities. ---- At present we have a
pseudo continuity of employment between direct employees and a collapsed
induced sector, while ENI repeats the fairy tale of the skills center,
the mysterious solution that will in fact accompany the dismantling of
the Ragusa plant. Recently the "six-legged dog" has spread the word
regarding other projects for research centers for mechanical recycling
or for the production of vegetable oils, always vague promises that have
never been followed by anything official, and which in any case always
and only concern research and never production.

The trade unions and political forces have shown themselves to be
completely subservient to ENI's voracious and extractive strategies,
hanging on the lips of its managers and preaching a confident but
suicidal wait.

The only interesting and proactive intervention came from Legambiente,
which took care to study the path of a productive reconversion based
essentially on the link with the territory and on a supply chain of
organic products.

Legambiente writes that the skills of Versalis, owner of Novamont since
the end of 2023, could be exploited in the field of bioplastics.
Novamont is a world leader in the field of bioplastics and bioproducts
with MaterB, in addition to having founded, together with Coldiretti and
the Consorzi agrari d'Italia Mater-Agro, a company that intends to
promote a new model of participatory innovation between agriculture and
industry, helping farmers to maintain good cultivation yields, through
the use of low-impact biodegradable bioproducts and biomaterials.
Solution that is being attempted to introduce in the Iblean greenhouse
industry plagued by the fumarole phenomenon.

Specifically, the proposal is to replace plastic clips and wire used in
greenhouses and responsible for toxic fumes from the combustion of plant
residues with wires and clips in biodegradable material. Today,
biodegradable clips are on the market but are produced in Holland using
Novamont's MaterB. Why not produce them in Ragusa instead, placing the
Tabuna plant alongside the Novamont plants already present in Italy and
Europe? The reconversion of the greenhouse production system towards the
green sector is not only necessary but convenient and the Ragusa plant
can be one of the pillars.

The fact that these are not far-fetched ideas is demonstrated by the
interest of the Region in financing the introduction of biodegradable
materials in vegetable cultivation with the PSR. I firmly believe that
the current employment at the Versalis site, including related
industries, and in the important agricultural sector of the transformed
area would benefit, while in a not too distant future this production
could become the driving force of national and international exports.

Legambiente's proposal was endorsed by the Honorable Stefania Campo who
at the end of January transformed it into an urgent motion to the
Sicilian Regional Assembly.

I repeat what I wrote in my previous interventions: proposals and
projects, however interesting, if they are not accompanied by a strong
mobilization by, first of all, those directly involved, but above all by
civil society and the population, are destined to remain a dead letter.
ENI cannot be considered a simple interlocutor, as it is the architect
of decades of robbery of the resources of our land and the progressive
death of the most important industrial sector of the territory. If the
approach towards it does not change, this dispute is destined to become
a joke, as is already evident in the latest promises (in words) of the
chemical giant, which are added to the previous ones and announce for
Ragusa a support center for the bio-refineries of Gela and Priolo, mini
pilot plants and a mechanical recycling plant that should serve as
support for both the Hoop plant (a structure for chemical recycling) and
the bio-refining plant.

I believe that even those who do not understand anything about these
things realize that we are talking about a few dozen jobs, highly
specialized, white coats rather than blue overalls, always assuming that
these promises are fulfilled. I do not understand why they do not want
to acknowledge that ENI has already condemned the Versalis plant in
Ragusa and has already dug the grave of all the workforce employed in
the related industries. Legambiente's proposal instead contains all the
conditions for the regeneration of the dispute, it needs the involvement
of all the economic sectors of the province, with the agricultural
sector of greenhouses in the lead, in an impetus of redemption from the
blackmail of the para-state multinational, but above all of dignity.
Only in this way will it be possible to turn the page.

Pippo Gurrieri

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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