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| A firefighter tries to put out a pile of trash that was set alight in the shopping zone of Via Roma, in Naples, Italy, early yesterday. The fire brigade was called to over 50 similar blazes in Naples and the surrounding province in the night as the local trash crisis continues |
The waste crisis in the southern Italian city has escalated in recent days with the build-up of more than 2,300 tonnes of malodorous rubbish in the streets and armed guards brought in to escort garbage trucks as tensions rise.
Naples’ Mayor Luigi de Magistris has warned that organised crime rings are fomenting the waste crisis and said it is putting residents at risk.
“Various groups want Naples to remain buried under garbage ... for political reasons or because of illegal interests,” he said in an interview with the Repubblica daily yesterday.
“A working waste disposal system would create jobs and help the economy, something that some people do not want,” he said.
Naples is the stronghold of the Camorra – a powerful international crime syndicate with a wide range of activities including drug trafficking, as well as major interests in construction, import-export and waste disposal.
De Magistris said on Thursday that the Camorra was against him because he wanted an “environmental revolution” that would enforce legislation on recycling garbage and therefore take a chunk of traditional revenues away from the Camorra.
The newly-elected leftist mayor of the southern Italian city also accused Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his government of failing to help.
“Berlusconi has shown with his actions that he doesn’t give a damn about Naples. He has washed his hands of it like Pontius Pilate,” he said.
De Magistris won a local election last month against a candidate from Berlusconi’s ruling People of Freedom party, which also lost control of Milan.
The government last month mobilised the army to help clear garbage from city streets, where angry local residents forced to walk around wearing masks or covering their mouths began setting fires to the accumulating black bags.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has stepped into the crisis and said he was alarmed by conditions in the southern city.
Napolitano, who visited the city on June 13, put pressure on Berlusconi’s government to take action.
“It’s absolutely essential and urgent to intervene in the acute and alarming deterioration of the waste crisis in Naples,” Napolitano told the local Il Mattino newspaper.
He said he had expressed concern to Berlusconi that the cabinet had failed to approve a decree allowing waste to be transported to other regions.
Berlusconi, who often cites clearing the streets of Naples shortly after returning to power in 2008 as one of his biggest successes, blames local politicians for the problems, but many protesters see it as the government’s fault.