Naples waste management crisis

Uncollected garbage in Naples, 2010.

The Naples waste management crisis is a series of events surrounding the lack of waste collection in the city of Naples that peaked in the summer of 2008, and regarding the disposal of the trash is currently unresolved.

Background

Since the mid-1990s, Naples and the Campania region have suffered from the dumping of municipal solid waste into overfilled landfills. Another problem is that Pianura's garbage dump in Naples was filled by North Italy's industries and garbage from other Italian regions. Beginning on December 21, 2007, the municipal workers refused to pick up any further material; as a result, the waste had begun to appear as regular fixtures on the streets of Naples, posing severe health risks to the metropolitan population. On December 31, the government closed one of two major dumps near the city at the request of the city's residents.

Reports during the summer of 2008 stated that the problem was caused at least in part by the Camorra, a powerful local mafia based in Campania, who had created a lucrative business in the municipal waste disposal business. Heavy metals, industrial waste, and chemicals and household waste are frequently mixed together, then dumped near roads and burned to avoid detection, leading to severe soil and air pollution.

Government dumping plans

In January 2008 Romano Prodi’s government announced plans for the solution of the crisis, including the building of three new incinerators. Prodi appointed a former national police chief as waste commissioner and the army was called in to bulldoze the waste from the streets of Caserta, while protesters clashed with police in central Naples. But no real progress had been made by May of that year, when Prodi's government was defeated in the general election. At that time over 200,000 tonnes of waste still remained on the streets.

Crisis management

The newly elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took immediate action, and held his first cabinet meeting in Naples. He then appointed a new waste commissioner, Guido Bertolaso (then the head of the Civil Protection Department). Bertolaso faced similar protests from the residents of Naples, but during June and July 2008 he dealt with the problem. He opened new landfill sites and an incinerator. In addition he sent 700 tons of rubbish a day to incinerators in Hamburg, Germany, while new incinerators should be built locally. By the end of July, Berlusconi declared that the emergency was closed. By September the rubbish had gone from the streets of Naples,

In March 2009, waste commissioner Bertolaso was transferred to Rome, to deal with a new high-profile problem even though great amounts of garbage were still stocked in temporary sites awaiting to be disposed of. Likewise, in many municipalities on Naples' periphery, there is still a garbage problem. Though Berlusconi's actions have cleaned up the city of Naples, one account states that, as of September 2009, "the highways and byways of the rural south remain festering dumping grounds."

Newsweek reported that in October 2010, riots near Terzigno halted garbage collection again in Naples, leading to "overflowing bins and renewed international attention", and "new calls for [Berlusconi's] resignation and allegations that his government is in bed with the mob". The riots occurred after the government announced another 3-million-metric-ton landfill would be constructed within Vesuvius National Park; residents, already upset by toxic waste levels at a nearby landfill, were said to believe that much of the garbage going into the new landfill would be "illegally imported by the Camorra" and would be similarly uncontrolled.

The newly elected mayor of Naples Luigi de Magistris, a former antimafia magistrate, faced the waste management issue from the early days of his mandate. As a result of his efforts, in the period between June and November 2011, the quantity of uncollected garbage in the streets declined from 2500 tons to zero. A plan of differentiated waste collection was implemented, and reached levels of 70% over the 300,000 inhabitants involved. When the bid for the construction of an incinerator facility was abandoned, this approach was also discarded, together with the construction of new landfills, and garbage transfer to the Netherlands by boat was preferred. According to this strategy, a contract was signed with the Dutch company AVR, which manages the Rotterdam incinerator, to transfer Naples garbage to the Netherlands at the rate of one ship-load per week. The initial operations have been allocated to the ship Nordstern, which in early January 2012, started the transfer.

See also

• Biùtiful cauntri, a 2007 documentary film about the environmental problems relating to the waste dumping
• Triangle of death (Italy)

External links

Press reports

• Reuters (9 July 2007), U.S. warns citizens over Naples garbage crisis, Rome: Reuters {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help).
• CNN (7 January 2008), PM attempts to tackle Naples trash crisis, Rome: CNN {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help).
• Vinci, Alessio (8 January 2008), Why Naples is drowning in garbage, Rome: CNN.
• BBC News (8 January 2008), ‘Trash tsar’ to clear Naples dirt, BBC.
• AFP Staff writers (22 January 2008), Naples under 3,500 tonnes of garbage as strike endures, Rome: Agence France-Presse.
• Pomeroy, Robin (5 February 2008), Ryanair uses Italy trash for advert after Sarkozy, Rome: Reuters.
• Vinci, Alessio (21 May 2008), Berlusconi vows to fight trash crisis, Rome: CNN.
• Viggiano, Laura (23 May 2008), Police clash with protesters over Naples trash law, Naples: Reuters.
• Ingiusto, Dario (3 june 2011), A map of Chiaiano's dump, in Naples' north, Bologna: Mapping the World {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help).
• Laboratorio Campano