i left but the garbage is still there

it's been days that people everywhere, in italy and now in germany too, are asking me about the garbage situation in Napoli and surroundings. they ask me "HOW?" and "WHY JUST THERE?"

it's been a problem for 12 years or more, but a couple of weeks ago the national media seemed to remember about it again. today i even saw the news on the bbc.

personally i don't know that much about it. i was in salerno over xmas and there we didn't have problems. i am still wondering where our trash goes. but in the rest of the region it's terrible. it makes me want to cry.

and since i'm sick of getting asked the same question again and feeling impotent and unable to answer and basically only sorry as hell, i decided to collect as much information as i can about the problem.

am sorry but most of the stuff is going to be in italian.


here is the 3 min promo of a documentary called "biutiful cauntri" (see prev post) by esmeralda calabria, andrea d'ambrosio and peppe ruggiero:



i still haven't seen it (difficult to find) but even so i am of the idea it should be broadcast on unified channels at 20.00 for a week or so all over italy. information on it can be found here.


and here is a translation of a piece of what roberto saviano wrote yesterday on repubblica:

"It's in another country that the names of those who are liable for that are known, however that's not enough to make them guilty. It's in another country that the main economic power is that of criminal organisations, but still information is obsessed with politics and it fulfills the news everyday, while clans keep going on destroying and building the country without any real information reaction, because information is seldom and distracted.

The emergency was not initiated by Camorra. Camorra have no pleasure in creating emergencies, Camorra does not need emergencies. Camorra can exploit their own business on the garbage as well as on everything else anyway, as always, with sun or rain, during an emergency or in apparent normality, when they can take care of their business better, without anyone getting interested in its territory, when the rest of the country give them their poisons at an unbelievable price and think they can wash their hands and sleep in peace.

When we throw something in the trash, there in the trash bin under our sink, or when we close the black plastic bag, we have to think it's not going to turn into compost, or into some shitty material feeding mice and seagulls, but it's going to turn directly into stocks, investments, soccer teams, buildings, finance fluxes, companies, election votes. From the emergency you can't and don't want to get out, because it's one of the moments when you gain the most out of it."

here is the whole version of the article: Imprese, politici e camorra - ecco i colpevoli della peste (in italian)

and that's what he said on tv a couple of days ago:



just to make things clearer, here is another article by roberto saviano, it's a bit older, from last june, when the emergency state had been - as usual - temporarily forgotten:
Ecco i padrini dei rifiuti (Here are the "padrini" of waste)

and here is another useful link, just to show that it's all real: rapporto ecomafia 2006, an official document where we can sadly read that my region wins the first prize for crimes against the environment

watch out:
environment: we're not talking about devastating the habitat of the polar bear or the pink panther but about making huge profits via systematic destruction of a large area and the health of its human population!


ok maybe you might think i'm obsessed with saviano. i don't know him, but i really like the way he says and writes things. especially when you're used to the same politicians who have been repeating you the same bullshit for 15 years and that the problem does not exist or whatever else...

but now this has apparently become really obvious, when even the former director of repubblica writes something like
"Who committed this macroscopic mistake? ... the main people who are liable for that are the governor of the region, Bassolino, and the mayor of Napoli, Russo Iervolino. In the past I liked them both, but now my regard towards them is much weaker.

I believe they should leave. Apologise and leave. I wish the Prime Minister will ask them to. Their leaving the scene won't be a magic wand to make the hill of gargabe disappear from the city and suburbs, but should however represent the right punishment to their strategy mistake they made and kept making for years. People's disillusion towards politics is mainly due to an overforgiving system which rewards flatness and patronage.

The garbage in Napoli reflects the more general malfunctions of our democracy, which is late by several decades regarding the changes happened in the meanwhile in all other countries comparable to ours."

(here is the complete column written today by Scalfari: La montagna di "monnezza" che sfiora la luna)

and the same point was also on a repubblica issue a couple of days ago, couldn't find it on the website though. the title was "Democracy killed by garbage" by francesco merlo, here's a translated abridged version:

"May Antonio Bassolino and Rosa Russo Iervolino tell us not one more word about fighting the Camorra, the Reinassance of Napoli and the Southern Dream. May they stop once and for all pretending their moral commitment to the fight against crime organisations (...) The hope that Bassolino would have given a new organisation and new order, a new ethic and aesthetic, is choking under Napoli's gabage: to run the region without killing, without cheating, without corruption. Remember the Emilian model, the Tuscan model? Unfortunately in the trash of Napoli is dying (...) the illusion that the good old men from the left wing would have made it work, where Lauro, Gava, De Mita failed. But that old Napoli is getting its revenge on us. We look at the garbage and wonder how come it's not breaking down the conscience of our government and of our left wing parties (...) The trash in Napoli is questioning Italian democracy."


one last thought before going to sleep

i am finally happy that something which does make sense has been written also on national press. because more than once, during this media bombing about the garbage emergency, i have been reading the most incredible shit. first of all, i repeatedly read blaming the people of Campania and complaining that it's their fault, since they don't differ between plastic, paper, and so on.

Writing such a thing is a shame: you cannot blame the people for not doing something which is at the moment completely useless (because the recycling plants don't exist at all!). I was very angry. True, sometimes people should start differing the rubbish even if the recycling plants are not working yet, so they learn and get used to it. But in Napoli and surrounding the only thing people are getting used to is to store trash: it lies for days in the streets, and then it is stocked, either it is buried in dumping ground (very clever!) or it is stacked on some grounds - who knows who owns them and gets the rent from the state - waiting for the building of a burning plant.

and just to make the point even clearer, when i say stacking on some ground what i mean is this



Now, I really don't know much about burning plants. I heard that it can be a good technology, that you can get electricity and/or heating out of that. But I also heard it's poisoning for people who leave nearby. I don't know enough to say if it is a good idea or not. But what I know is, apparently we cannot find any better idea than burying the waste in dumping grounds. Even though dumping grounds get full after a while, even when you put there only a small amount of stuff (usually leftovers from burning plants), and you always need to find a new place and destroy another village or another country area by dropping there our waste... imagine when this has been for more than 10 years the only way to get rid of the trash! It's the worst idea ever, to solve an emergency by extending the natural conditions that made it arise!

So, since the situation is such, nobody please dare blame people for not differing the trash! There are so many reasons for which we should blame the people, ourselves, and not only in Campania. And they are good reasons. This is not one.

here's the same point and other stuff, just written better!
from Nazione Indiana: Post (moderno):la monnezza spiegata ai bambini -1


and for those who still didn't, please read Gomorra, at least THE LAST CHAPTER! which is about the garbage and its fluxes: regular trash from south to north, since we cannot treat it, and toxic waste from north to south, since we offer the best prize ever for taking it and poisoning our soil... forever! i really believe this chapter, especially now, should be printed and put in the mailbox of every single Italian

........TO BE CONTINUED - UNFORTUNATELY.......