International Project
| PREMISE |
The strong points that make RemTech an innovative exhibition, capable of combining ideas, products, projects and solutions with moments dedicated to the encounter between supply and demand, firstly include the promotion of the most technologically advanced tools, the selection of the most experienced partners, the operators training, the sharing of virtuous experiences and the opening of new roads to emerging markets, both at national and international level.
This year, once again, the very qualified exhibition area presents products and services of excellence by Italian and foreign companies to the RemTech community. Conference sessions with speakers of international repute, permanent training courses, technical meetings organized by the exhibitors, pilot tests and demonstrations will mark the event's program, particularly rich and varied.
A key event is the third edition of the RemTech Training School, National and International, which is focused on innovative technologies for remediation, with the presentation of the most interesting case studies and the best technologies by the companies, and the involvement of the leading foreign buyers.
Bilateral meetings, exclusive round tables and targeted presentations will be specifically organized within the framework of the foreign delegations (buyers), in order to create and develop concrete business opportunities for companies.
| OBJECTIVES |
The countries involved in the International Project by RemTech (target countries) meet precise requirements, such as a high environmental "stress", due to the presence of various kinds of industrial activities (heavy industry, refineries, mines, landfills, etc.), a strongly growing economy and the promotion and the increase of activities aimed at environmental and health protection.
RemTech strengthened the relations with many target countries, with wich it is defining new agreements, aimed at supporting the exhibition firms. These are the countries: Russia, Belarus, China, South Africa, Turkey and Romania.
| TARGET COUNTRIES |
| Russia |
The environmental policy is a highly updated subject in Russia, but despite the recession and the implementation of several programmes of protection, the level of pollution is still elevated: in dozens of cities it steps over the thresholds laid down by hygiene rules. In the reservoirs the quality of water – both drinkable and for the irrigation – is often not in accordance with laws, so that the country is fourth in the world for water contamination.
In order to align with European standards, Russia has recently issued a number of provisions on the reduction, management, disposal and recycling of both city and industrial waste, as well as on the reclamations of soil and water, and the remediation of polluted areas. In particular, the National Environmental Management and Cleaner Production Center for Oil and Gas Industries, which include the Gupkin University Oil & Gas and UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization), is preparing manuals and guidelines for the application of BAT (Best Available Technologies) to the major and most polluting industrial sectors (extracting fuel oil, refining, mines, drinking water and waste disposal), on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation and of The Duma,.
In 2015 RemTech Expo signed a partnership protocol with the Foundation to plan common actions of formal training and promotion in Russia concerning the reclamations of soil and water.
Furthermore, the ratification of the Stockholm Convention by the Russian Federation has called for urgent cuts in POP (Persistent Organic Pollutants). Even the activities of drainage of sediments and groundwater will record an increase in the coming years, because of very critical situations as the emergency of pollution of phenol in the lake Baikal.
| Belarus |
Belarus is characterized by a scarce population density and a wide surface, covered with natural landscapes, woods and wet areas.
The decay of the soil, the pollution of the superficial and subterranean water, the management of waste and the radioactive contamination caused by the incident that hit Chernobyl in 1986 are just few of the main environmental issues that have affected the country.
Minsk wants to decrease the distance between its own environmental laws and the European ones. Belarus is actually the only one among the states in Eastern Europe that has included environmental care among the priorities of the three sectors of the bilateral cooperation, in the indicative long-term schedule and programme called "Europe Aid". Furthermore, the executive has recently defined the economic development programme "2030 National strategy for a sustainable economic development”, that marks the road map for the next 15 years, included the recovery of the soil far away from Chernobyl, but still polluted, and the privatization in many sectors of services, such as the management and waste disposal.
| China |
Environmental technologies are included in the seven key areas in which the Government wants to found a sustainable growth and the "green" appears in the "Catalogue for foreign investments" supported by public authorities. In this respect, despite the elements of complexity, due to the high fragmentation of responsibilities and the exclusive state ownership of the land, the remediation can provide an opportunity.
The soil pollution, the agricultural productivity, health and life quality, up to now obscured by many years of economic boom and by smog alarms and water contamination, are in dramatic conditions and under the media spotlight, also because of recent food scandals (such as high levels of cadmium found in rice sold in the metropolis of Guangzhou). Among the latest victims, there are hundreds of students of a school in Eastern China, who got sick because of toxins emitted by a former pesticide manufacturing site. Chen Jining, Minister of the Environment, said that the survey promoted after the incident all over the country to identify the areas polluted by heavy metals, chemicals and other toxic substances, should start a long-term plan for the allocation of tens of billions of yuan for reclamations of soil and water. However, it cannot be excluded that real data will still be a State secret for a while, since they could identify multinational corporations as responsible, and start claiming for substantial compensations.
In 2015 RemTech hosted a delegation which represented the Science and Technology Talent Education Center of Zhejiang, the Environmental Science Research and Design Institute of Ningbo, the Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Exchange Center with Foreign Countries, the Hangzhou Municipal Science Technology Commission, the Environmental Supervision Group, the Environmental Department of Zhejiang’s Province and other institutions in the field of the environment. The exhibiting companies presented to delegates an excellent know-how, high level products and services about remediation of soil and groundwater, and the management of land, with the aim of creating business opportunities of internationalization.
| South Africa |
South Africa is a very modern nation, in steady and continuous growing, whose economy dominates the African sub-Saharan continent.
Nowadays the most relevant environmental issue is linked to the wide contamination produced by industrial sites and mainly by the exploitation of many mines, still explored or abandoned, especially due to the presence of metals in superficial water or aquifer.
Since 1998 South African Government has started several projects and policies favouring the development of the environmental sector and the renewable energy resources, such as the agreement signed by the new born University of Kimberly and the Università degli Studi of Ferrara, as well as the mission about green technologies of Emilia-Romagna Region.
Therefore the South African reality is presenting as particularly favourable for the Italian companies specialized in soil recovery. Again RemTech Expo will deepen the existent relationships to estimate the opportunities of business for the exhibitors.
| Turkey |
The high population growth rate leads to massive migration from rural areas to the industrial cities – especially Istanbul, Izmit, Izmir, Adana and Mersin – and strong impact on the environment. The unplanned urbanization, with the use to urban purposes of fertile farmland, has produced salinization, soil erosion, air pollution (especially in urban areas) and surface water pollution (caused by chemicals and detergents), deforestation and possible spills of oil and gas from 10,000 ships every year passing through the Bosporus.
Therefore, Ankara's priorities are the treatment plants of waste water, solid waste management and biodiversity conservation, but in 2015 the legislation was also enriched with a law on reclamation (2Regulation on controlling soil pollution and point-source polluted fields"), which last year was explained to companies by two members of the Turkish Ministry of Environment in a dedicated workshop at Ferrara Fair. Translated into figures (estimates of the Ministry, in cooperation with the European Union), the environmental crisis could result in investments of over 70 billion euro by the year 2025, including wastewater treatment (38 billion), harmonization of the industrial sector with EU regulations (14 billion), treatment and recycling of solid waste (13 billion) and combating air pollution (3 billion).
| Romania |
RemTech is working to strengthen the institutional relationships started during the past edition, with the target of building new and consolidated occasions for its own exhibitors. It aims at hosting at Ferrara Fair some important delegates of Romanian environmental authorities, such as the Ministry of Environment and the National Agency for the Protection of the Environment (which are the two most involved institutions for monitoring and remediation projects), and at organizing a workshop about the Romanian legislation concerning the theme of contaminated sites and the found raising actions for remediation.
More than twenty-five industrial districts and platforms in Romania have been described as "firmly contaminated areas" – and fourteen of them are considered as "hot points" –, because of companies that generate polluting elements with a severe impact on the environmental health, including the soil and the subsoil.
The majors contamination sources of the soil are the extraction of industrial oil, transports, petrochemicals, the working of minerals, the extractive, metallurgical, chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries, and dumping grounds. The main polluting elements are several kinds of hydrocarbons, heavy metals and dangerous chemical substances, used in the chemical industry. From a technical point of view, contamination is originated more by several kinds of under grounding industrial installations than from atmospheric depositions.
The potentialities of the Romanian historically contaminated sites – whose inventory is going to be agreed – are elevated and the business opportunities are real.
