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Burning garbage crisis in Naples

by cynthia yoo | May 19, 2008 at 11:17 am | 754 views | 9 comments | 7 recommendations

Caserta Campania Italy fire blazing with smoke 3

Caserta Campania Italy fire blazing with smoke 2

Angry Naples residents torched piles of garbage that have grown to crisis proportions. They are fed up with government inaction that has allowed tens of thousands of tonnes of piled up garbage.

Apparently, residents have 'voted' with their lighters and some 90 separate fires have been reported on Monday.

Silvio Berlusconi's new government is to announce new measures to deal with the crisis at a special cabinet meeting in the city on Wednesday.
"Every six to seven minutes, one of our emergency vehicles sets off with its sirens screaming," local fire commander Ugo Bonessio told La Repubblica newspaper.

The company in charge of collecting Naples' rubbish, l'Asia, promised Monday to start special collections, saying there was currently 3,500 tonnes of uncollected rubbish in the city, compared with more than 5,000 tonnes on Saturday.

"Trains loaded with waste should be leaving today for Germany," Asia president Pasquale Losa told ANSA news agency.

Around 100,000 tonnes of waste was to exported to Germany for disposal.

In addition to the 5,000 tonnes of waste still littering Naples, there are tens of thousands of refuse pile along roads in the Campania region.

Toxins believed to be seeping into the soil from this waste caused a health scare earlier this year when the region's prized buffalo mozzarella cheese was found to containing raised toxin levels.

"The escalation in rat colonies and the risk of transmission ofdiseases like leptospirosis (transmitted through the urine of infectedrodents)," has created a "dramatic" health risk, president of theNaples College of Physicians, Giuseppe Scalera, warned on Sunday.

The European Commission this month launched legal action against Italy before an EU court over its failure to tackle the crisis.

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cynthia yoo

at 11:27 on May 19th, 2008

A flickr user comments on a typical garbage-filled neighbourhood street scene:

"There is a terrible garbage collection problem in Naples perpetuated by
organized crime. We walked by as these people tossed the garbage from
the dumpsters into the street, blocking traffic. It's the only way to
get your garbage collected. "

Beaulieu

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:47 on May 19th, 2008

cynthia yoo, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Rachel Nixon

flagged this story as News Wanted

at 11:48 on May 19th, 2008

I think this is an important story and would benefit from other NowPublic contributors working on it. I've flagged it as News Wanted and invite others in relevant locations to look for more evidence.

Beaulieu

at 11:54 on May 19th, 2008

Thanks for the extra report on Flickr Cynthia....

Stefano Minopoli

at 02:01 on May 20th, 2008

Even if there is a dramatic garbage problem, my city (Naples) is one of the most beautiful place in the whole wide world!

Please, help us...do not only describe in negative mannar my lovely city. There is already an enough number of problems in Naples: the organized crime (know as Camorra), microcrime and others.

Now I post a garbage shoot, but I hope that next time I'll have a request for to post an another kind of photo of my city (please, look for this purpose my Naples collection on Flickr on http://www.flickr.com/photos/paraca/collections/72157603990089676/).

Have a great day to all!

Stefano Minopoli.

Mikasi

at 03:39 on May 20th, 2008

you can write the story....

Luigi D’Aponte

at 02:26 on May 20th, 2008

NO SENTENCE, NO ARREST, NO CRIME:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luigidaponte/2200912163/

This is the dramatic condition lived currently from my splendid
and tragic city, Naples.

Luigi D'Aponte

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luigidaponte/

jwbanks

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:17 on May 21st, 2008

cynthia yoo, I like this story. It's good stuff.

conceptedge

at 07:20 on May 26th, 2008

The problem with reporting from a distance is that some times they are not seeing the important details. True, you can use the word "resident" who set the trashes on fire, in the sense that they may all live in the area. However, for the most part, they are not your normal law-abiding residents. Normal people wouldn't set trash on fire near where they live since it will create even worse pollution, it is simple logic - and I live in this area. The people who burn the trash are the assholes and scoundrels who are often Camorra-wannabes or tools of the Camorra or simply stupid kids with nothing better to do than destruction. In the past, whenever this was a garbage crisis, the Camorra will pay people like that to burn the trash and create an even more eminent threat to cause the local government to hastely award contracts to the Camorra-owned waste disposal or landfill companies. Even worse, some times, the Camorra would hide toxic waste hauled from other parts of Italy among the normal urban waste and set them on fire.