Italy – rubbish torched in Naples crisis

Rubbish is blocking some streets and leaving an unpleasant smell. Piles of rubbish have been set alight by residents in Naples angered by a continuing row about refuse. Local dumps are completely full and communities have blocked attempts to build new ones in their areas.



BBC Online reports that refuse collectors have nowhere to take the rubbish, heaps have built up since the dispute began almost a fortnight ago.



More than a hundred fires have been reported and environment officials have warned of a risk of toxic smoke. Firefighters were unable to deal with all the emergency calls, citing staff shortages. One street was blocked by residents who feared that a rubbish dump in their area might be re-opened.



EU proceedings



Naples and the surrounding Ca mpania region have endured a series of refuse crises over the past few years and the European Union began legal action during the last dispute in June 2007.



§ Although the case is continuing, it is likely that the latest row will trigger a faster response.



§ A spokeswoman for the European Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas, said he was monitoring the situation.



§ President of the Italian parliamentary commission for the environment, Ermete Realacci, said the row was going from bad to worse.



§ "The situation in Campania is an outrage that our country cannot afford any more", he said.



§ He appealed to the authorities to find appropriate dumping sites and to residents to do more to recycle their waste.





Incinerating plants halted in Campania



News agency AGI reports that all waste treatment pla nts that involve the incineration of rubbish have been shut down in the Campania region. The move is due not only to the progressive running out of space for the bales and the by-products produced but also due to the fact that the plants need to be modernization. It has now become a crisis situation, however, due to the lack of temporary storage sites available for almost all the Campania provinces.



Naples continues to send 1,500 tonnes of waste to Germany, and is beginning to set up a dump in Pianura, whereas the construction of a site for the bales in a Poggio Reale quarry is well on its way to being completed. The completion of thermal waste treatment facilities in Acerra, however, is still a long ways off, and for the one in Santa Maria La Fossa talks are still underway. The target of a thermal waste treatment plant in Salerno seems closer, after the local administration‘‘s proposal was approved by the Waste Emergency Commissariat, while experimentation is unde rway for treatment based no molecular dissociation.



The situation has reached breaking point in the Caserta area, the only province in which temporary storage sites and dumps have not been found. About 100,000 tonnes of waste are lying in the streets of the area, either untreated or stored in temporary sites if not in the vehicles which collected the rubbish themselves.