Neapolitan to Take Away
It has been estimated that 100,000 tonnes of garbage currently sits on the streets of Naples and the city’s surrounding region.
What’s the background to this?
How has it been allowed to happen?
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Well, obviously you don’t get 100,000 tonnes of rotting material appearing overnight. There’s an estimated 5,000 tonnes in Naples itself, before you take into account the surrounding area.
The catalyst to this crisis occurred when garbage trucks stopped operating in much of the region (Campania) just before Christmas because landfill could take no more.
Incredibly ill-timed. Not only did it highlight a problem already there - i.e. landfill bursting at the seams - but the local authorities then had the massive headache of waste to be dealt with in the immediate period after the festive season - the most wasteful time of the calendar.
Residents and police are now clashing. This is bad. The army had to be called in immediately after Christmas to remove garbage that was preventing children from returning to school.
The German city of Bremerhaven has stepped in to help and has pledged to incinerate 30,000 tonnes of the stuff over ther next 6 months. Hugely embarrassing for the Italian government.
Which prompts the obvious conclusion. Bremerhaven must have a far healthier approach to waste management than Naples if the city can take another city’s garbage … It highlights the need for comprehensive laws regarding re-use and recycling.
In a bid to understand the situation more, I turned to The Economist.
It appears that Campania has had a problem with garbage for 14 years.
The trucks stopped operating on the 21st December because the dumps were full and an incinerator that was meant to be ready wasn’t. Although warnings were aired a year ago, still nothing was done. The plot thickens.
It appears that local organised crime has a stronghold and backs aggressive opposition to the instilling of modern incinerators because without them, it can continue to earn vast sums from the illegal dumping of waste. However, that aside, locals feel they have very candid reasons to oppose incineration due to fears over emissions from the burnt waste.
And I think here we reach one of the cruxes.
Less than one eighth of Neopolitan waste is separated prior to collection!
The locals understandably fear that the burning of harmless waste will be undermined by the burning of more toxic materials in their immediate vicinity. Who can blame them?
From what I’ve researched, this is not going to dissipate overnight. With organised crime having vested interests, with a government unwilling to take heed before the problem escalated to that of a crisis, with no clear signs of measures to introduce recycling on a large scale (see in bold above) I can’t see a simple solution to a situation that should never have been allowed to occur in the first place.
Sources:
Image courtesy of Flickr
Hmmm… maybe we should reach out to La Cosa Nostra and show them the economic benefits of recycling?
That’s pretty amazing, Pem. Not exactly the type of environmental problem that one thinks of as happening in Europe.
I was shocked when they thought they could send it to Romania. A not-so-capable administration apparently leads to disaster!
Didn’t know about Bremerhaven, but the incinerator people in Switzerland are certainly making plans to take some of the trash (nothing has been approved as of yet):
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/search/Result.html?siteSect=882&ty=st&sid=8614722
Thanks for the info Z.
Organized Crime and Government? Isn’t that redundant?