Chapter The management of dredged materials: the «long and winding road» from waste to resource

Abstract

Both the dredging operations and the management of dredged materials may have heavy impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems. Dredged materials, in particular, have been considered for a very long time nothing more than a waste meant for disposal. Now the time has come to move from the ‘disposal approach’ to the ‘waste recovery’ or, even better, to the ‘waste can be a non-waste’ ones. Unfortunately, the management of dredged materials is committed to a congeries of rules, which build up a framework of law that appears plainly fragmentary and incoherent. The road is still long (and winding).