These are the dumpsters on our street. There are currently three. The black is for garbage, the blue is for plastic and glass, and the white is for paper and cardboard. Pretty simple, right? Our situation isn't too bad. The containers are emptied several times each week, and there are a few dumpsters on our street. Sometimes they overflow a little, and the Italians don't really grasp the recycling concept yet (the containers are less than a year old). Overall, we can't complain about our garbage situation.
Well, Campania, the province or state, south of here (has the city of Naples) is not the same way. They have had problems with the overfilling of landfills for 15 years, and last summer they entered into a garbage emergency. Basically, they have no place to put the trash, so it is no longer picked up on a regular basis. There are a ton of other things involved in this issue: politics, unpaid taxes, organized crime, and a whole list of other things. You can read some articles (1, 2, 3, or 4) or do a search if you want to learn more. It really gives insight into how complicated and convoluted issues become in Italy.
There was a February 29 deadline imposed by the European Union to solve the problem, but that date has come and gone with not much change in the situation. The only thing major is that the current Italian government was overthrown, and a new election will happen next month (but that is another discussion completely).
We visited a palace in Caserta on Sunday (March 16, 2008). This happens to be in Campania. Caserta itself didn't have too many garbage issues, but our first real sighting was on the drive out from Caserta to our friend's house. These are two of the piles we saw. Can you imagine living with this pile of trash outside your house? Yuck!
The small town where our friend lives doesn't have the problem (also in Campania), and this was really good to see. I just can't imagine living with piles of garbage outside my house, and it makes me very appreciative of our trash collection in Rome (and in the US).
2 comments:
I saw this on the news actually. People are protesting about the garbage situation, and some have taken to burning the garbage. It has caused some house fires and related damages. Not too smart, IMHO, because now you've got to live with the smell of burning garbage.
The news also mentioned orgainized crime had something to do with it. I'll read your articles to find out more. But it's unfortunate that a famous city like Naples has to endure such garbage...
We had to deal with garbage problem back in China. During summer, the odor was so strong that we had to keep our windows closed. But eventually we had to open the window because the apartment got too hot. But then, we had fly problem. It only took a few years to keep the situation under control!
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