Neapolitans
are reliving the same bleak situation of almost three years ago:
tonnes of rotting garbage lining city streets and the surrounding
province. The trash situation exploded in late October when local
officials declared a state of emergency in the southern Italian
region of Campania.
The situation, and its
cause, is not new. A failure to organize recycling strategies, along
with grave mismanagement on the part of garbage collection firms in
Naples and the problem of finding new destinations for the region’s
rubbish, have resulted in a decade of recurring trash emergencies.
This time, officials point the finger at the garbage disposal firm,
which failed to collect the refuse; officials from the firm said they
couldn’t because of funding cuts.
Disposal was further
thwarted by protesting locals in the town of Terzigno, site of the
Cava Sari landfill, which is located in the protected area of the
Vesuvius National Park and just kilometres away from the active
volcano. Residents continually blocked the road to the landfill
entrance and clashed violently with police on several occasions. Both
Neapolitans and residents in Terzigno torched rotting trash piles as
a sign of protest, but also to ward off disease and pests.
The emergency response by
the Civil Protection Agency and the government in late October was
quick. Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi visited the area, promising
to clean the streets of Naples within 10 days; he did so by diverting
trash to neighboring landfills and by bringing the incinerator in the
nearby city of Acerra to full capacity, which, when operating
regularly, can incinerate 1598 tonnes of refuse daily; it is enough
to dispose of the 1,500 tinnes of trash the city of Naples alone
produces every day.
However, Berlusconi’s
assurances were not enough and trash still lines the streets in
Naples. On November 9, there were still 1300 tonnes of refuse.
