`Tuscan Landfill Gives Away Olive Trees to Compensate for Carbon Emissions - Olive Oil Times
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Tuscan Landfill Gives Away Olive Trees to Compensate for Carbon Emissions

By Paolo DeAndreis
Feb. 2, 2023 13:36 UTC

An Italian pub­lic com­pany has enacted a mas­sive project of plant­ing olive trees to com­pen­sate for its car­bon emis­sions and fos­ter local extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­tion.

The waste-man­age­ment, land­fill and bio­fuel com­pany, Scapigliato Srl, has announced that thou­sands of olive trees will be donated to farm­ers, asso­ci­a­tions, com­pa­nies and local insti­tu­tions in 56 munic­i­pal­i­ties in the Rosignano Marittimo region of west-cen­tral Tuscany.

To be selected as recip­i­ents of the trees, the inter­ested par­ties must fill out a form and pro­vide details of their request. They can ask for a min­i­mum of 50 trees to a max­i­mum of 5,000. All the trees will come from nurs­eries that can pro­vide cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“The ini­tia­tive aims at iden­ti­fy­ing the farms, agri­cul­tural coop­er­a­tives, net­works of food pro­duc­ers, farm­land own­ers,” a note reported.

In the note, the com­pany explained that they would include mul­ti­ple olive tree cul­ti­vars, includ­ing Frantoio, Leccino, Maurino, Moraiolo, Pendolino and Leccio del Corno. These cul­ti­vars are renowned olive vari­eties widely spread in Tuscany and north­ern-cen­tral Italy.

Once fully deployed, project pro­mot­ers and Tuscany regional author­i­ties expect that approx­i­mately 245,000 olive trees will pro­vide at least 700 hectares of new olive orchards, with an aver­age den­sity of 350 trees per hectare.

The waste-man­age­ment com­pany has also spec­i­fied that non-profit orga­ni­za­tions may par­tic­i­pate in the project if they man­age or own appro­pri­ately-sized areas.

In addi­tion to the olive trees, the Scapigliato Trees Project will sup­port plant­ing 30 hectares of green and for­est areas. They plan on adding more to that num­ber depend­ing on part­ner­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties with neigh­bor­ing munic­i­pal­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ties.

The project will cost around €3 mil­lion and is expected to com­pen­sate for 1,195,000 tons of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions. According to the com­pany, that num­ber will counter all emis­sions they have pro­duced since start­ing oper­a­tions in 1982.

While intro­duc­ing the project, Scapigliato Srl added that for the next decade, it would invest an addi­tional €2 mil­lion to fur­ther improve the project by plant­ing 8,700 trees, 36 thou­sand shrubs and 630,000 square meters of grass­land. Such invest­ment should com­pen­sate for 215,000 tons of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions.

The company’s goal is to com­plete the project before 2030, which is the year the land­fill it man­ages will be for­mally closed. At that time, only its bio­gas col­lec­tion facil­ity and other facil­i­ties will remain to trans­form and man­age organic local urban waste.

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