Recently entered into force, Legislative Decree 116/2025 (so-called. Decreto Terra dei Fuochi), which sanctioned the aggravation of the prescribed penalties regarding environmental offences, underwent a slight mitigation when converted into law. Specifically, the Terra dei Fuochi Decree, in force from 9 August 2025, had provided that “ anyone who carries out waste collection, transport, recovery, disposal, trade and intermediation activities in the absence of the required authorisation, registration or communication referred to in articles 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 214, 215 and 216 is punished with imprisonment from six months to three years”. The crime of unauthorized management of non-hazardous waste, which has always been a contravention crime, therefore acquired a criminal nature.
With the conversion law n. 147/2025, which came into force on 8 October, however, the unauthorized management of non-hazardous waste returns to take on the characteristics of a contravention, punished with arrest from three months to a year or with a fine from two thousand six hundred euros to twenty-six thousand euros. The oblation provided for by articles 318-bis and following of the Environmental T.U. is therefore applicable again: the offender who complies with the requirements given by the competent authority within the deadline indicated by them, eliminating situations of danger and damage, and pays a sum equal to a quarter of the maximum fine established for the contravention committed will be able to obtain the extinction of the crime.
Furthermore, if the person, beyond the deadlines imposed by the authority but before the opening of the hearing, or before the conviction decree, manages to comply with the provisions given to him, he/she will be able to access the improper criminal oblation (art. 162-bis cpp): for the purposes of extinguishing the crime, the offender will have to pay a sum corresponding to half the maximum fine established by law, in addition to the costs of the proceedings.
Moreover, the path of non-punishability for particular minor entities remains always valid, to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
In compliance with the principle of favor rei, the changes reported above, introduced with Law 147/2025, are applicable retroactively to the date of entry into force of the Terra dei Fuochi Decree.