On 10 October 2023 came into force Law 137/2023 came updated to D.lgs. 152/2006, which determines the application of a criminal fine in the case of abandonment of waste carried out by persons who are not owners of companies or managers of Entities.
According to art. 6b, anyone who abandons waste, or disperses it in surface or groundwater, is punishable by a criminal sanction of 1,000 to 10,000 euros, whereas previously a financial penalty of 300 to 3,000 euros was applied; the penalty is doubled if the abandonment concerns hazardous waste.
This provision applies without prejudice to the provisions of article 256, paragraph 2 of Legislative Decree. 152/2006 (already present before the amendments), which provides for the arrest and/or the fine of up to € 26,000 for the owners of companies and the managers of entities that leave waste.
It is therefore not only a matter of an increase in the fine to be paid, but also of the legal nature of the sanction: now the private citizen who leaves waste will no longer commit an administrative offence, but a contravention and therefore a criminal offence, Like companies and bodies, and will be imposed a penalty, no longer an administrative sanction.
Further amendments envisaged by the measure concern:
• a tightening of penalties for forest fires, in particular an extension of the scope of the offence to urban-rural interface areas, and the introduction of new ancillary penalties;
• the extension to environmental crimes of the confiscation of the property of the sentenced person;
• the quantification of the increases of punishment to be applied in case of pollution (art. 452-bis c.p.) and environmental disaster (art.452-quater c.p.) produced in protected natural areas or subject to landscape, historical or artistic (damage of protected animal or plant species).
For further study:
Waste abandonment, from 10/10/2023 criminal penalties for all (Environment Network - Environmental Regulation Observatory)
Waste abandonment: increased amounts of fines (Environment & Safety)