Le aziende municipali di gestione dei rifiuti e le loro strategie di prevenzione dei rifiuti: esperienze dalla Germania. – Sono stati tracciati il discorso e la rilevanza dei rifiuti nel lavoro quotidiano delle aziende tedesche di gestione dei rifiuti. Finora, l’attenzione si è concentrata principalmente sui rifiuti di plastica e sulla raccolta differenziata dei rifiuti organici per la produzione di compost. Nuove frazioni di rifiuti, come i rifiuti alimentari, stanno guadagnando attenzione. Le interviste agli esperti dimostrano che le affermazioni idealistiche della politica, dell’amministrazione e dei gruppi d’azione sulla preven-zione dei rifiuti e sugli obiettivi “rifiuti zero” sono espandibili nella pratica reale delle famiglie e del loro comportamento in materia di rifiuti.

The use of force in interstate relations: theory and evolutions in geo-political practice. – The use of force in relations between states and other players on the world stage: theory, practice and developments in political geography. Based on the experiences of the twentieth century (world wars, genocides, ideological-totalitarian degenerations, decolonization processes), the geopolitical thought of late modernity, starting from the 1960s, essentially develops in a “critical” sense. Then it assumes, among its favorite themes, the discussion on the essence of power (whether or not it is intrinsically “bad”), of the state and of politics (if they inevitably have to rely on the use of force); then it starts the development of a method targeted to regulation and prevention of conflicts, based on a process of deconstruction of alleged “false” ideas of power, to prevent the effects of escalation that have led the whole of humanity to the risk of destruction and self-destruction. These needs are translated operationally into the search for the so-called “insider” factors, that is, those that, in a certain scenario, beyond an immanent and self-evident “casus belli”, cause effects of permanent and out of control conflict, to the point of making war an element that justifies itself (an end, rather than a means). Effects that confuse any causal chain, which make it difficult to identify links and motivations, and therefore the search for a solution, and with it the pacification of crisis scenarios (which in fact tend to perpetuate themselves in areas of “endemic” conflictuality. All this proceeding on the basis of a neo-Enlightenment (possibly neo-liberal) assumption, which almost deterministically assumes the affirmation of an open society, refractory to violence, and the assimilation of “evil” to the mechanisms of democratization, to open market and capitalist prosperity. All this in a context of multilateral policy development, the establishment of international organizations, and the consolidation of a trans-national geo-economic apparatus, of civil society as an “answer to war”, with the aim of progressively limiting, up to cancel the same occasions of conflict; and this to the point that an idea of war as something obsolete spreads (perhaps in an illusory way). The latest events, however, and recent developments, seem to contradict this trend, re-proposing themes and tensions that ge-ographic-political theory seemed to have abandoned for some time. A fact made even more evident by the current invasion of Ukraine, which leaves you dismayed, like aggression to troglodytic times, when the invasion did not need to have a justification; it seems to cause deliberate violence and destruction on a large scale, so much so as to question the entire “critical” paradigm. Putin 24th February discourse deliberately denies the right of Ukraine to survive as a national human community. Evolutions that make it necessary to rethink the practices of limitation and regulation, of the intervention and prevention devices of war, and of the same method of study of the scenarios; perhaps a return to models that, just until a few months ago, were considered outdated.

Social capital and digital interactions in Italian regions during the emergency phase Covid-19. – With the implementation in Italy of the prevention measures against the spread of the Covid-19, social interactions have been recalibrated through the use of digital infrastructures such as Internet, which have strengthened stable and innovative social relationships. The aim of this research was to evaluate by a quantitative approach, the relationships in all Italian regions of social capital and digital interactions. The analysis has corroborated the existence of a regional divide and a dominant position of some regions of northern Italy and a different relational involvement of the population in all Italian regions.

Covid-19 between north and south of the world. – The article takes on a dialectical and relational vision of the metabolic relationship with nature. In this perspective, viruses are constantly changing in order to survive and the circumstances in which a mutation becomes dangerous depend on human actions. What are the factors that contribute to the spread of epidemics and their rapid transformation into pandemic event? A possible answer is precisely in the historical process: when geographic boundaries become blurred and the world is interconnected, pathogens spread faster, because they travel with goods, animals, plants and with man. And the human being is a node of relationships in all directions, beyond time and space. If we are able to recognize the value and dignity of every human being, we will have started to defeat the pandemic.