RE: [greenyes] FW: NYTimes.com Article: Oh, What a Mess! It's a V olcano of Reeking Trash

[Nicky Scott <NScott@no.address>]

The picture is very different in Milan and regions in the north and on the
Adriatic east coast where fleets of battery operated vehicles are collecting
all compostable waste for composting -daily during the tourist season & on
the coast where the seagulls are fearsome.  One of the leading lights Enzo
Favoino is coming to talk at our annual conference in Derbyshire UK this
september - meanwhile Robin Murray has written it all up in his book 'zero
waste'
Nicky Scott Community Composting Network UK

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Rose Niemi [SMTP:Rose@no.address]
> Sent:	15 May 2003 23:03
> To:	
> Subject:	[greenyes] FW: NYTimes.com Article: Oh, What a Mess! It's a
> Volcano of Reeking Trash 
> 
> 
> 
> Anyone know about the status of recycling in Italy? ( see article below )
> 
> Take care,
> 
> 
> Rose
>  
> 
> 
> This article from NYTimes.com 
> has been sent to you by rniemi@no.address
> 
> 
> Oh, What a Mess! It's a Volcano of Reeking Trash
> 
> May 15, 2003
> By FRANK BRUNI 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> NAPLES, Italy, May 14 - Less refined than Milan and less
> revered than Rome, Naples has long struggled against the
> image of unkempt, unlucky stepsister to Italy's other major
> cities, with too much dirt under her nails and too little
> discipline in her ways. 
> 
> But she has never, ever seemed quite this trashy. 
> 
> For a
> smelly, squalid week now, parts of Naples and its suburbs
> have been overwhelmed, literally and figuratively, by
> garbage. 
> 
> Garbage defies the confines of dumpsters and rolls,
> Blob-like, down the sidewalks, threatening to suffocate and
> nauseate anyone in its path. 
> 
> It dominates casual conversation and political debate, as
> residents beg for release from the refuse and government
> officials wonder what to do. 
> 
> Schools have been closed because of it. Traffic has been
> blocked in protest of it. 
> 
> Perhaps inevitably, given the shadowy histories of both
> southern Italy and waste management, the Mafia has even
> been blamed for making things worse, and exploiting the
> chaos. 
> 
> "I don't like to talk about the Camorra, because then I
> feel like we're trying to shirk our responsibility," said
> Giulio Facchi, a supervisor with the region's emergency
> garbage commission, referring to the Naples-area
> incarnation of the mob. 
> 
> "But they make the problem gargantuan," Mr. Facchi said in
> an interview here on Tuesday. 
> 
> The situation is somewhat complicated, but its genesis
> could not be simpler: gritty, lusty Naples finally came
> upon the day when it had more waste than places to dump it,
> and had to let it be. 
> 
> Although regional officials had long been trying to build
> two large incinerators, they were thwarted by residents who
> did not want the plants in their neighborhoods and
> environmentalists who did not want the plants at all. 
> 
> That bind is echoed throughout Europe and Italy, where the
> population is so dense. Naples just reached the pungent
> crisis point sooner, with predictably messy consequences. 
> 
> It happened late last week, when piles of garbage that had
> nowhere to go began to climb, spread, fester and reek, to
> the considerable displeasure of Neapolitans, a famously
> passionate lot. 
> 
> All around the Naples area, residents moaned and marched.
> Some wore surgical masks, either relishing the
> theatricality of the gesture or looking for a better way to
> breathe. 
> 
> Others ignited hundreds of mounds of uncollected trash,
> forcing firefighters to work overtime. 
> 
> In the suburb of Circumflegrea, protesters dumped trash
> onto the railroad tracks, briefly delaying a train. In the
> suburb of Ercolano, the mayor was under such constant siege
> by her constituents that she was given a police escort and
> could not find peace even during a private Saturday-morning
> ritual. 
> 
> Women accosted her in the salon where she was getting her
> weekly wash-and-set. 
> 
> "Six or seven people came in," said the mayor, Luisa Bossa,
> in an interview in Ercolano. She looked weary but well
> coiffed. 
> 
> "They said I better do something about this - fast - or
> they would burn more dumpsters," she recalled. 
> 
> By Tuesday afternoon, she said, they had set fire to about
> 100 of them. 
> 
> Their ire is understandable. Ercolano ought to be
> picturesque, given its location on a slope between the
> Mediterranean and Mount Vesuvius. 
> 
> But to walk through it on Tuesday was to be riveted by
> scenes unfit for any postcard. 
> 
> On one block, a veritable Vesuvius of trash rose high above
> the dumpsters meant to conceal it. On another block, heads
> of rotting lettuce clumped into a miscreant shrub with a
> peculiar fragrance. 
> 
> "I mean, this is gross," said Maria Cozzolino, a young
> mother out for a stroll with her daughters, ages 8 and 6.
> "Especially for the kids." 
> 
> Ercolano was among many places around Naples where schools
> were closed on Friday and Monday, so that children could be
> spared the ill wind and foul stench from nearby trash.
> Mayor Bossa said she could not remember such a closing
> since the early 1980's, when the cause was an earthquake.
> "It is embarrassing," she said. "Humiliating." 
> 
> According to her and other local and regional officials,
> aspects of the overall situation are also suspicious. 
> 
> They contend that the burning of dumpsters and other
> protests have been encouraged by the Camorra, which could
> benefit by having a hand in the sale of replacement
> dumpsters. 
> 
> Amid the confusion, the Camorra could also find desperate
> clients willing to pay for their trash to be hauled and
> dumped illegally, local officials said. 
> 
> But there are heroes as well. 
> 
> The mayor of Torre Del
> Greco, where there was not an overflow of trash, let
> bundled cubes of it be taken to a city hall parking lot. To
> keep the stench down, workers sprayed the cubes hourly with
> water and perfume. 
> 
> There is hope, too. 
> 
> More dump space was opened early this week as several
> northern cities also agreed to let refuse be transported
> from the south by truck and train. Regional officials also
> said that the incinerators might now have a chance. 
> 
> This morning, a garbage truck plied the streets of Chiaia,
> an upscale neighborhood of Naples, to collect the mammoth
> heaps of waste not far from the Giorgio Armani and
> Ermenegildo Zegna boutiques. 
> 
> "The crisis is lessening," said Aldo Amitrano, a sanitation
> department supervisor on the scene. 
> 
> Reflecting on the past week, Mr. Amitrano said, "More than
> anything else, it's been dramatic."
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/15/international/europe/15NAPL.html?ex=1054
> 035380&ei=1&en=66cc2f445e4ceb18
> 
> 
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