«We will produce recycled plastic granules, starting from post-consumer materials, transforming it into a polymer to be reused for bottles, caps, trays and other products and the plant will be completely rebuilt, since today it has no systems and infrastructure». The announcement by Paolo Di Giovanni, director of the new Packaging To Polymers, the newco that brings together Unilever Ventures Holdings BV and Seri Plast (a company of the Civitillo group, which operates in the production and recycling of plastic materials, ndr.) puts an end to four years of uncertainties, negotiations and postponements on the future of the Unilever plant in Pozzilli, one of the longest and most complex industrial crises in Molise. Detergents were produced here, tomorrow recycled plastic raw materials will be produced from the recovery of post-consumer packaging.
A paradigm shift. In 2022, the Anglo-Dutch multinational in the consumer goods sector, which markets 400 brands in 190 countries around the world, decides to close production. A year later, a public allocation from Invitalia and private P2P became available to support a total productive investment of 109 million (now down to 107.1 million) for the reconversion of the site, but on the last formal step, the signature of the National Development Agency did not arrive due to bureaucratic blocks and the appeal to the Molise Regional Administrative Court presented by the Civitillo group, Unilever’s partner in P2P. The mechanism stops.
Until six days ago, when the amicable settlement of the dispute arrived, «thanks to two years of intense work between the Molise Region, the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy, Invitalia, the company and the unions, which ultimately ended positively and which will have a positive impact for the entire territory of Venafro, one of the industrial areas of Molise which is suffering the most», underlined the regional councilor for Productive Activities, Andrea Di Lucente.
Invitalia has reformulated the maxi-financing intended for P2P: approximately 79.5 million (14.7 million as a non-repayable grant and 64.8 million as a subsidized loan) will be used for industrial investment and 1.4 million for research activities, another 26.2 million will be provided by the private sector. The public money is available immediately, given that the president of P2P, Vittorio Civitillo, has announced that he has already presented the deed of renunciation of the appeal lodged with the Regional Administrative Court of Molise and that from next week “it will begin to be operational”, with the aim of creating a site that “does not include any incinerator or chemical processes”. The timetable is practically done and Di Giovanni has punctuated it: the work to set up the factory, «which will have to be completely rebuilt because it has no systems and infrastructure, will begin shortly»; this is a maximum job, which moves the start of production to the first quarter of 2028 and consequently the 58 workers currently on layoffs will be progressively reinstated as the construction sites progress, until they are completely reabsorbed by 2027. An industrial plan that Civitillo approved “after a lot of bureaucracy and waiting”.
