Environmental crimes, what they are and how they differ
While it is not necessary to impose the law to respect and protect the environment, it is still useful to remember that harmful behaviors towards the land that hosts us are provided for by the Penal Code and appropriately sanctioned. Crimes against the environment are of various types and grouped into five classifications:
- Environmental pollution,
- Environmental disaster,
- Traffic and abandonment of high radioactivity material,
- Obstruction of control,
- Failure to remediate.
Let's now examine them one by one, what they mean and what the Code provides regarding sanctions and measures.
Environmental pollution
Sanction: imprisonment from two to six years Fine: from € 10,000 to € 100,000. A person is considered guilty of environmental pollution if “anyone unlawfully causes significant and measurable impairment or deterioration of water or air, or of extensive or significant portions of soil or subsoil of an ecosystem, biodiversity, including agricultural, flora or fauna.” There are also cases where aggravating circumstances are provided:
- when the pollution is produced in a protected natural area or subject to landscape, environmental, historical, artistic, architectural or archaeological constraints, or to the detriment of protected animal or plant species
or
- in case of death or personal injury (except in cases where a disease lasting less than twenty days occurs) as a consequence of the crime of environmental pollution
Conversely, reductions of penalty are provided:
- in the case where the acts are committed involuntarily, “by negligence.”
Environmental disaster
Sanction: imprisonment from five to fifteen years. The Environmental disaster is defined as: "the irreversible alteration of the balance of an ecosystem" or also: "the alteration of the balance of an ecosystem whose removal is particularly burdensome and achievable only with exceptional measures", "the offense to public safety due to the significance of the act for the extent of the impairment or its harmful effects or for the number of people harmed or exposed to danger". In this case, aggravating circumstances are also provided if the disaster is produced in a protected natural area or subject to landscape, environmental, historical, artistic, architectural or archaeological constraints, or reductions in case the acts are committed involuntarily.
Traffic and abandonment of high radioactivity material
Sanction: imprisonment from two to six years Fine: from € 10,000 to € 50,000, The crime in this case concerns “anyone unlawfully transfers, purchases, receives, transports, imports, exports, procures for others, holds, transfers, abandons or unlawfully disposes of high radioactivity material.” Aggravating circumstances are provided if the act poses a danger of impairment or deterioration of water or air, or of extensive or significant portions of soil or subsoil, of an ecosystem, biodiversity, including agricultural, flora or fauna, danger to life or safety of persons.
Obstruction of control
Sanction: imprisonment from six months to three years Anyone who, “denying access, setting up obstacles or artificially changing the state of the places, prevents, hinders or evades the activity of environmental monitoring and control and safety and hygiene at work, or compromises its outcomes.”
Failure to remediate
Sanction: imprisonment from one to four years Fine: from € 20,000 to € 80,000 This crime concerns “anyone, being obliged by law, by order of the judge or a public authority, fails to carry out the remediation, restoration or recovery of the state of the places.” Dorabaltea was born from the dream of safeguarding the most precious resource we have on earth, water. All company procedures and the behaviors of our operators are aimed at maximum respect for nature. For Dorabaltea, it is essential to seek the best and most eco-sustainable plant solutions in both the residential field and in the industrial field that allow us to restore a resource to the environment rather than treating it as waste. (source: https://www.arpat.toscana.it)
