The Piedmont Regional Government has approved funding for a new call to remove asbestos from buildings owned by Municipalities, Provinces, and the Metropolitan City of Turin. The application window will open by July 2024.
A regional fund of €3.141 million, allocated for the three-year period 2025-2027, will support the initiative. Priority will be given to interventions on buildings where risk assessments—considering the material’s degradation and exposure risk—have confirmed an urgent need for remediation to address potential dangers to public health and the environment.
“Our commitment to tackling this long-standing issue, on which we have worked for years, continues,” stated Regional Environment and Energy Councillor Matteo Marnati. “Simultaneously, we are advancing the asbestos mapping activity, planning to employ new methods and technologies. Thanks to the regional administration’s reorganization, a dedicated sector has been identified to soon begin drafting the new Regional Asbestos Plan.”
Alongside incentivizing asbestos removal, the Piedmont Region, through its Environment Department and supported by ARPA Piemonte (Regional Environmental Protection Agency), has been creating and updating a map of both anthropogenic and natural asbestos presence since 2004. For anthropogenic asbestos, the focus is primarily on roof coverings, identified using remote sensing and artificial neural networks.
The Region has also contributed, and continues to operate, in the remediation of the National Interest Sites (SIN) in Casale Monferrato (Alessandria), dealing with the legacy of the former Eternit plant, and Balangero (Turin), a former asbestos mine.
As highlighted in the recent Strategic Asbestos Committee meeting, the Region intends to promote activities in the coming years that incentivize interventions on private buildings. This dual-purpose approach aims to remove asbestos-containing roofs while simultaneously installing renewable energy production systems, particularly photovoltaic panels.