Energy: Bertone (Acqua Sant’Anna), ‘prices destroy the sector, the state does not help on green’

lThe mix of rising oil and energy prices, essential for the mineral water industry, risks destroying the sector, but the state does not help those who produce with alternative and bio materials. This was reported by the managing director and president of Acqua Sant’Anna, Alberto Bertone, who for years has been producing a fully compostable bottle, but taxed in the same way as the classic pet bottle, derived from petroleum. ‘In this sector – he says to Adnkronos – the two most important components have undergone dramatic increases, oil between 100 and 150%, electricity even more. We no longer have margins, we will have to reposition ourselves as a sector with absolutely different market prices that affect the purchasing power of consumers already severely tested by all the other increases and in this situation this industry risks being destroyed along with others. Because in the end the consumer who is undergoing a flurry of increases can’t take it anymore. And then the state should start with them, taking fewer contributions and leaving them more money in their paychecks to make them breathe ”. Then on the industrial side, even if we want to turn green using renewable sources for energy and bio materials to bottle water, according to the entrepreneur there are objective difficulties and obstacles. Beyond the projects and development plans, it would be enough to do ” what the state does not do. We have been producing a completely organic bottle for years, which can be composted. It costs me more because there is a monopoly situation on the material used, but the State has never intervened with incentives, even if only by lowering the VAT today to 22% which in other European countries we find at 5% or 1 % on a good that is water in any case, certainly not a luxury good. Yet in this way it could make this product more accessible, incentivize other producers to focus on organic products and help increase consumers’ attention to a symbolic object such as the plastic bottle ”. The advantages in producing Pla, a biopolymer of 100% vegetable origin instead of traditional plastics, result in a saving of over 50% of non-renewable energy and a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions, while in the production process in the factory, 60% of energy is saved in the drying phase of the granules (with which the bottle preforms are produced), up to 30% in the melting phase and even 70% in the cooling of the preforms. Bertone also says that by wanting to produce alternative energy from renewable sources ” the bureaucracy kills any attempt. I would like to put solar panels, but the authorization process is an ordeal, there are two or three ministries that legislate differently on the issue. It becomes impossible, it takes 20 years. It is easy to talk about green plans, I have been trying to be green for years, but I have never received aid from either the State or the Piedmont Region. What’s the point of talking about green plans? ‘