Managing waste in Italy is increasingly expensive, and this is confirmed by the new Istat report on cost indices published on 10 July 2026, which measures how the expenses incurred by companies dealing with the collection, treatment, disposal and recovery of materials are evolving.
Although the increase recorded between 2024 and 2025 is relatively limited compared to the sharp increases in prices during the years of the energy crisis, the trend still remains upward.
How much waste management costs have increased in Italy
According to Istat, between 2024 and 2025 the overall cost of waste management will grow by 1.7%. The increase is the result of the increase in:
- purchase of goods and services (+2.0%), a category which includes numerous items indispensable for carrying out daily activities, such as electricity, fuel, maintenance, technical services, materials and supplies necessary for the collection and treatment of waste. In particular, the estimate of the composition of these intermediate costs incurred by companies in the sector derives from the integration of Istat sources with Ispra sources;
- personnel expenses (+1.8%), which reflects the trend in contractual wages and labor costs in a sector characterized by highly labour-intensive activities;
- cost of use of capital (+0.1%), although more contained, since these are investments in vehicles and plants which have less impact than daily operating costs. Environmental
Collection and disposal increase more than material recovery
Istat distinguishes the waste management sector into two large economic sectors:
- the first includes waste collection, treatment and disposal activities;
- the second concerns the recovery of materials, i.e. all those activities aimed at recycling and valorising recoverable materials.
In 2025, the sector that records the greatest increase is that of collection and disposal. The increases are in fact equal to:
- +1.9% for waste collection, treatment and disposal;
- +1.4% for material recovery.
The difference is not huge, but it confirms that the activities directly linked to the collection of urban and industrial waste continue to be those most exposed to growth in management costs.
How increases are distributed: what impacts costs the most
In waste management:
- 66.4% of costs concern the purchase of goods and services;
- 18.8% is represented by staff;
- 14.8% from the use of capital.
In this case:
- for the component of purchases of goods and services, the producer price indices of industrial products and services produced by Istat detailed at the level of 262 items were used;
- for personnel costs, the costs are deduced from the monthly survey on contractual salaries considering the hourly cost of waste sector personnel as the reference variable;
- for the costs of using capital they are derived from the production price indices of capital goods.
From this analysis and taking these variations into account, it emerged that the weight of purchases is even higher in the recovery of materials, where it reaches 78.1%, while in collection and disposal activities it still represents 57.8% of the total. The sector therefore remains highly dependent on the price trend of supplies, energy and services purchased on the market.
