Firefighters battled overnight in the southern Italian city of Naples to extinguish dozens of blazes as angry residents set rubbish piles alight. The city has some 3,500 tonnes of uncollected rubbish, piled up around its streets. Italy's prime minister is due to hold a cabinet meeting in the city on Wednesday to address the crisis. Silvio Berlusconi has hinted he may force local councils to accept new rubbish dumps, despite opposition.
Firefighters battled overnight in the southern Italian city of Naples to extinguish dozens of blazes as angry residents set rubbish piles alight.
The city has some 3,500 tonnes of uncollected rubbish, piled up around its streets.
Italy's prime minister is due to hold a cabinet meeting in the city on Wednesday to address the crisis.
Silvio Berlusconi has hinted he may force local councils to accept new rubbish dumps, despite opposition.
Berlusconi's much publicized ministerial reunion in Naples to "affront the garbage emergency" has simply incremented the arson attacks making it all the more difficult to collect trash. Predictably, earmarked heads will fall.
In the meantime it appears the Camorra has centered its objective, if we can give credence to the scoop today written by Carlo Bonino in the Repubblica.
Because of the emergency, shipments of undifferentiated waste abroad has become a major resource for solving the problem. Until now, the rail society Ecolog shipped waste to Saxony at a price of 225 euro per ton. The company had also negotiated new contracts with the three giants in the sector, BKB, Remondis, and the French Veolia, for a total of 600,000 tons. Negotiations with the Swiss were well on the way for 60,000 tons at 199 euro per ton.
The Ecolog CEO Roberto Cetera has always been menaced by the camorra for his campaign against organized crime infiltration. The menaces against him suddenly ceased when Ecolog lost the job.
Strangely- or not at all- Ecolog's contract has been revoked to the advantage of another rail company that has yet to begin transport with the excuse that the German authorities have intervened. Supposedly, Germany wished to set a limit to the processing of Neapolitan waste. But the new plan makes no sense. The waste is now to be routed to a small consortium of companies called Returo in Reno-Westphalia at the price of 270 euro per ton, against the previous 225 or 199. The Returo companies have only the capacity to process 10,000 tons each.
The transportation of waste to Germany has all but ceased since the end of March aggravating the emergency. The new company, which has never transported waste before, Trenitalia Cargo, will begin transportation to Reno-Westphalia as of this evening. In coincidence with Berlusconi's three-ring circus in Naples.
I would like to see a sense of civic pride in which everyone separates waste and recycles but I see that in Rome it is largely ignored- far beyond what is perfectly normal in the North.
It remains that sanctions are notoriously ineffectual in Italy. They are usually shot down quickly by the administrative tribunals or the upper courts.
What will happen is that as soon as organized crime has monopolized the market at an inordinately higher cost to the taxpayer, garbage will shrink to a tolerable level- only to be pulled out again when the mobs up the ante.
Even the official statistics and reports are cooked. In no way do they depict the real situation. It is why I feel that Italy and its products should be boycotted. The garbage in Naples is an Italian problem. The `Ndrangheta in Calabria or the Mafia in Sicily is an Italian problem. If Italy can't put its shit together, hit their exports.
