WASTE MANAGEMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: A SURVEY OF AN ITALIAN MANUFACTURING CONTEXT P. COCCA*, D. ROSSI*, G. TOMASONI* *Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, Italy SUMMARY: Many authors have analysed the environmental aspects and impacts of business activities and the benefits that an environmental management system (EMS) may bring to a company. The aim of this paper is to confirm some of the findings already emerged and to deepen the analysis. The first objective is to investigate practices and customs in waste management by firms, in particular of waste oils, in an Italian manufacturing context. The second objective is to discover associations between the presence of an EMS and the improving of regulatory compliance in waste administration. A questionnaire was addressed to 448 firms producing used oil as a waste and a response rate of 37% was achieved. A statistically significant association between the presence of an EMS and an improved administration of waste was found; in particular, the effectiveness of education and training to help employees make fewer mistakes in waste management emerged. 1. INTRODUCTION As it emerged from the European Business Environmental Barometer (EBEB), a quantitative survey of the state and development of environmental management in Europe, waste and energy consumption generated during production are perceived as the major environmental impacts by European firms from the productive sector (Baumast, 2001). Once wastes have been produced, the problem of how to manage and dispose of them in the correct way needs to be faced and that is why the European Union issued many green laws which regulate the treatment and the disposing of particular types of wastes, such as waste oils (Council Directive 75/439/EEC), batteries and accumulators (Council Directive 91/157/EEC), end-of-life vehicles (Directive 2000/53/EC), waste electrical and electronic equipment (Directive 2002/96/EC). Another result that emerged from the EBEB survey was the increasing number of companies which had implemented an Environmental Management System (EMS) or had gained certification to either ISO 14001 or EMAS (Baumast, 2001). In literature, there has been for a lot of time a debate on the real benefits that an EMS or an