Naples rubbish crisis: New unrest as government vows 'radical' solution

Yahoo News 8 Jan 08;

New unrest erupted outside Naples overnight, the ANSA news agency reported Tuesday, as Italy's centre-left government pledged a speedy, "radical" solution to a Mafia-linked rubbish disposal crisis in the region.

A huge fire raged at a dump occupied by protesters who took it over after security forces made a tactical retreat following days of clashes over the site, which authorities plan to reopen to cope with a massive logjam of uncollected rubbish.

Outside the Pianura dump, near the Pozzuoli suburb west of Naples, protesters were using an earth mover to break down a containment wall for debris to block the access road along with dozens of overturned garbage bins and downed traffic light poles, ANSA said.

Pozzuoli residents, up in arms over a plan to reopen the Pianura landfill, claimed a victory when security forces moved away from the site on Monday evening, allowing protesters to occupy it.

But the situation turned tense again as security forces began pushing back towards the site, ANSA said.

The renewed protest was apparently sparked by an announcement that preparatory work to reopen the site would go ahead, along with reports that soldiers were arriving to carry out the work.

In Rome earlier, government spokesman Silvio Sircana told journalists: "Within 24 hours we will be ready to confront the situation radically," after Prime Minister Romano Prodi met with cabinet members to address the chronic problem in the impoverished southern city and the surrounding Campania region.

Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio then announced that he had asked for army reinforcements to help collect the mountains of rubbish that have accumulated for more than two weeks.

After brainstorming separately with ministers including Scanio and Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, Prodi will convene a "summit" of all the relevant ministers at 11:00 am (1000 GMT) on Tuesday, Italian media reported.

The crisis prompted finger-pointing from outside the government as well as within Prodi's fractious ruling coalition as the prime minister was already bracing for a new round of threats to his precarious political position.

The right-wing opposition claims that Scanio, who heads Italy's Green party, is partly to blame for the crisis for having refused to allow new incinerators to be built in the Naples region, home to some six million people.

A single incinerator is set to go into operation in early 2009.

The centre-left mayor of Naples, Rosa Russo Iervolino, for her part broadsided Prodi with the declaration that he "was informed of the risks a year ago."

Authorities want to add tens of thousands of tonnes of waste to the Pianura site, only a fraction of the more than 110,000 tonnes that have accumulated with existing treatment centres operating beyond cap

acity.

Across the region, residents have set dozens of fires, sending dioxin and other toxins into the air.

Clandestine dumping by organised crime dubbed the "ecomafia" has forced the closure of several treatment centres in Campania.

Criminal investigators say the Camorra Mafia pay truckers to haul industrial waste from factories in northern Italy for fees that undercut those of the legal trade. They dump it at existing landfills in the Naples region or create new ones by blasting holes in mountainsides.

Italian Army Tackles Naples Garbage Chaos
Robin Pomeroy, PlanetArk 8 Jan 08;

NAPLES - Italy's army shifted mountains of rubbish from schools and streets around Naples on Monday to ease a two-week-old garbage crisis that has triggered violent protests by residents.

Locals angered at plans to revive a landfill in their neighbourhood clashed with police while Prime Minister Romano Prodi held emergency meetings with ministers to decide a plan of action for the area, where waste collection ground to a halt in the run-up to Christmas.

The protest was peaceful again by Monday evening but residents still expressed fury about the failure to deal with Naples' long-running waste crisis.

"They are the killers -- those (politicians) who promised that there will be no more dumping here," said a 42-year-old protester named Luciano, who declined to give his surname.

Protesters are trying to halt the re-opening of the waste dump, closed in 1996. But Rubbish dumps in the Naples area are full and a massive incinerator which was supposed to open at the end of 2007 is not ready.

Some 110,000 tonnes of garbage has accumulated in the Campania region, of which Naples is the capital, local media reported on Monday.

VIOLENCE FLARED

The trash emergency has dogged the southern region for 14 years. Italy has spent 2 billion euros and appointed six successive "trash tzars", but a combination of political incompetence, corruption and organised crime has scuppered efforts to solve the crisis.

Violence has flared several times in recent days between protesters and police outside the landfill in the suburb of Pianura. One man who climbed onto a bulldozer was dragged off by police and said he was beaten with truncheons.

"I climbed up there as a gesture and they hit me in the head and on the back," said the 30-year-old builder who gave his name as Vincenzo.

Near Monday's protests, stray dogs picked through rotting trash on the semi-deserted streets, the stench of rotting food heavy in the air.

Many schools, due to reopen on Monday after the Christmas holidays, remained closed amid public health concerns despite the army bulldozing garbage away from the buildings. Hundreds of trash piles have been set alight by residents, prompting fears of high levels of cancer-causing dioxin emissions.

Part of Naples' problem is that organised crime groups have made illegal waste disposal an industry that was worth 5.8 billion euros (US$8.6 billion) in 2006, according to a study by conservation group Legambiente.

The Camorra, the Naples brand of the Italian Mafia, is heavily involved in the transport and disposal of waste. Local authorities say it has benefited from the continuing crisis and may have actively tried to prolong it.

Mafia-controlled waste disposal -- by burial or burning -- has poisoned the environment so badly that people in some parts of the region are two to three times more likely to get liver cancer than in the rest of the country, according to Italy's National Research Council. (Writing by Robin Pomeroy and Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Janet Lawrence)


Soldiers bulldoze Naples rubbish
Christian Fraser, BBC News 8 Jan 08;

The Italian army has begun bulldozing the 100,000 tonnes of rubbish that has piled up in the streets of the southern city of Naples.

The government is to hold an emergency meeting to find a solution to the rubbish crisis. Naples dustmen stopped collecting rubbish two weeks ago.

With nowhere to put it local people are forced to burn it. The fire brigade has been struggling to put out the fires.

Protesters have clashed with police near an overflowing landfill site.

Police tried to reopen the site, but residents of Pianura, a western suburb, said it was a health risk and blocked the roads. They threw stones at police, who responded with batons. At least three people were taken to hospital.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi has returned from his holidays to a national embarrassment. The EU is warning there will be tough penalties unless Italy resolves the crisis this week.

Schools which have been closed were reopened on the orders of the government, though only a handful of students have left their homes.

Finding a solution to this problem means tackling the mob.

The Camorra, the Neapolitan version of the Mafia, has turned this into a hugely profitable business.

They have sabotaged every effort to build hi-tech incinerators, so that Naples must rely on landfill sites, where they can hide the domestic and industrial waste, which they chuck in from all around the country.

Health concerns

Millions of tonnes of it have been dumped illegally in the sea or in the countryside, untreated and highly toxic.

Doctors say cancer rates in Naples are much higher than the national average.

Over the weekend angry Neapolitans clashed with police.

In one of the more worrying developments, police found effigies of the mayor and the regional governor hanging from lampposts with death threats pinned to their chests.

Rubbish collection is a perennial problem which has plagued Naples and its politicians for some 15 years.

The government is conscious it is under severe pressure to find a solution - but this means tackling the mob.

The EU says it is watching closely and is considering legal action for Italy's breach of European waste disposal directives.

In 15 years of promises, the Italian state has spent some 2bn euros (£1.5bn) trying, and failing, to clean up the waste.

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