After a presentation in May 2008. It is not easy to comprehend and to explain the true reasons for the rubbish crisis in Naples and in Italy.
Many different factors have contributed to the national shame of one of the most beautiful places in the world – with its stupendous bay and harbour, located between the Volcano of Vesuvio, the Amalfi coast and the marvellous islands of Capri and Ischia – converted into mountains of heaps of toxic and foul-smelling waste on fire in the streets as if after a nuclear explosion or during a revolution.
I have to tell you that my presentation will be a partisan one.
I am an Italian Prosecutor and I used to deal with just these kinds of crimes in Palermo where the hands of organised crime on the business of garbage disposal can be considered – if it is possible - stronger than in Naples.
I have directed a lot of investigations on environmental crimes committed inter alia by members of Mafia families. Most of them have been charged with the crime of illegal waste trafficking and arrested during the proceedings. Some of them are still on trial and others have already been convicted.
Many different factors have contributed to the national shame of one of the most beautiful places in the world – with its stupendous bay and harbour, located between the Volcano of Vesuvio, the Amalfi coast and the marvellous islands of Capri and Ischia – converted into mountains of heaps of toxic and foul-smelling waste on fire in the streets as if after a nuclear explosion or during a revolution.
I have to tell you that my presentation will be a partisan one.
I am an Italian Prosecutor and I used to deal with just these kinds of crimes in Palermo where the hands of organised crime on the business of garbage disposal can be considered – if it is possible - stronger than in Naples.
I have directed a lot of investigations on environmental crimes committed inter alia by members of Mafia families. Most of them have been charged with the crime of illegal waste trafficking and arrested during the proceedings. Some of them are still on trial and others have already been convicted.
This preamble is necessary to underline once more that I cannot be neutral on this matter.
First of all I want to give you some numbers:
* Still today about 1,400 tonnes of rubbish are rotting on the streets of Naples and its suburbs after thousands of tonnes of rubbish – about 300,000 - has been cleared by the Italian army;
* 5 million eco-balls - unsorted compressed rubbish, in which toxic waste is often mixed with ordinary household refuse and the remains of old cars – are still waiting for their final disposal lying in thousands of acres of land in the landscape of Campania. The Region pays a huge amount of money for the rent of these areas;
* One and a half billion euros – you have understood right – has been spent in the last 11 years by the extraordinary chief for the so called emergency waste to solve the problem. Without any result.
* At least fifty calls are received every night by the Fire Department to put out the fires caused by the mountains of waste in the streets.
* Many investigations conducted by the Antimafia department of the local Office of the Prosecutor and trials are trying to ascertain what has happened in the last 10 years.
* Generally speaking, it has been estimated that the total amount of missing waste in Italy could be imagined as a new mountain 1,880 meters high with a base of 3 hectares. This ‘missing waste’ fuels a rich illegal economy. In 2006, earnings made by the illegal management of special (hazardous and non-hazardous) waste in Italy were estimated at almost 22.4 billion euros.
* Considering this huge amount of money it can be figured out why the Head of Cosa Nostra, Bernardo Provenzano, wrote in one of his famous “pizzini” (small notes that were used to communicate with the other members of the organization) which was intercepted during an investigation under the direction of the OTP in Palermo: trasi munnizza e nesci oro. (In comes waste, out goes gold)
In the area of Naples the rubbish crisis has been out of control for at least 15 years.
Since the beginning of the ‘90s, criminal organisations and other unscrupulous entrepreneurs ventured into illegal waste handling in the south of Italy and especially in Campania. A Highly lucrative market for illicit trafficking has emerged and expanded due to high profits and low, almost non-existent, risks under the direction of a violent, oligarchic system of controlling urban waste management.
First of all I want to give you some numbers:
* Still today about 1,400 tonnes of rubbish are rotting on the streets of Naples and its suburbs after thousands of tonnes of rubbish – about 300,000 - has been cleared by the Italian army;
* 5 million eco-balls - unsorted compressed rubbish, in which toxic waste is often mixed with ordinary household refuse and the remains of old cars – are still waiting for their final disposal lying in thousands of acres of land in the landscape of Campania. The Region pays a huge amount of money for the rent of these areas;
* One and a half billion euros – you have understood right – has been spent in the last 11 years by the extraordinary chief for the so called emergency waste to solve the problem. Without any result.
* At least fifty calls are received every night by the Fire Department to put out the fires caused by the mountains of waste in the streets.
* Many investigations conducted by the Antimafia department of the local Office of the Prosecutor and trials are trying to ascertain what has happened in the last 10 years.
* Generally speaking, it has been estimated that the total amount of missing waste in Italy could be imagined as a new mountain 1,880 meters high with a base of 3 hectares. This ‘missing waste’ fuels a rich illegal economy. In 2006, earnings made by the illegal management of special (hazardous and non-hazardous) waste in Italy were estimated at almost 22.4 billion euros.
* Considering this huge amount of money it can be figured out why the Head of Cosa Nostra, Bernardo Provenzano, wrote in one of his famous “pizzini” (small notes that were used to communicate with the other members of the organization) which was intercepted during an investigation under the direction of the OTP in Palermo: trasi munnizza e nesci oro. (In comes waste, out goes gold)
In the area of Naples the rubbish crisis has been out of control for at least 15 years.
Since the beginning of the ‘90s, criminal organisations and other unscrupulous entrepreneurs ventured into illegal waste handling in the south of Italy and especially in Campania. A Highly lucrative market for illicit trafficking has emerged and expanded due to high profits and low, almost non-existent, risks under the direction of a violent, oligarchic system of controlling urban waste management.
It has been discovered that mafia–type organizations are the main intermediaries for contracts offered by local administrations. They not only bribe local authorities to get the contracts but also own the trucking firms, participate in building and managing garbage collection equipment, and manage legal disposal sites.
In Sicily, for example, the new strategy of Cosa Nostra (the so called strategy of “submersion”, or hidden strategy) pushed mafia-type organizations to increasingly invest in legal businesses, operating quietly without provoking social alarm: the watchword is ‘less blood, more business’.
Many investigations conducted in Southern Italy have illustrated that mafia-type organisations not only take care of the collection, transport, handling and storage of waste, but they also control legal dumps and are involved in clean-up activities promoted by public authorities.
In Campania, the oligarchic control of urban waste management has already been established and well developed by mafia-type organizations – the so called Camorra - due to the fact that special/hazardous waste management offers illegal entrepreneurs more opportunities for profit. The illegal handling of special and hazardous waste is much more lucrative than merely handling municipal waste.
Criminal groups exercising deep control over their territories have put their capabilities to work in the business and the considerable access to land, caves and manpower enjoyed by mafia-type organizations has caused large areas of that region to be transformed into illegal waste dumps.
A very effective word has come into use by experts, lawyers, investigators and magistrates: Ecomafia.
The Italian Dictionary defines Ecomafia as that Mafia sector which manages activities highly dangerous to the environment, such as the illegal building industry and the dumping of toxic and hazardous waste. Although the term Ecomafia may refer to activities of highly structured, hierarchically integrated criminal organizations, it is currently also used to refer to the more general phenomenon of environmental crime and the illegal exploitation and management of environmental resources and/or services.
Big business all over Italy has profited by paying the Camorra, local organised crime, at extremely low cost to dispose of their industrial waste by dumping it in the Naples area. The Camorra chose one of the most fertile and agriculturally profitable parts of Italy where it has absolute control of the territory.
Through the control of the territory and of the local, corrupted administration the Camorra succeeded in stopping the building of two new incinerator plants and in opening new landfill sites. Suburbs where the authorities are trying to open or reopen other dumps look like war zones, with barricades of overturned rubbish bins, corrugated iron and tyres, manned by menacing young men.
Nevertheless, the protests are not only founded on the fear of health damages. Often they are inspired by the economic interests of organised crime to dump illegally the huge amount of waste.
The crisis is blamed on overflowing landfill sites controlled by the Camorra which has sabotaged incinerator projects, thus poisoning the environment through untreated waste to the point where some forms of cancer in the region are three times the national average.
This is one side: the strength of organised crime and its links with corrupted administrators.
But incineration cannot be the sole solution, it neither disposes of the waste, nor does it remove the health hazards. It creates toxic dust and ash and risks attacking people's health in another way.
But incineration cannot be the sole solution, it neither disposes of the waste, nor does it remove the health hazards. It creates toxic dust and ash and risks attacking people's health in another way.
The other side is the liabilities of the population and the inefficiencies of the local and national administrations. Do not forget that the waste recycling in the south of Italy has the lowest rate in the whole of Europe and one of the lowest of the so called developed world.
In January the Italian government appointed a Naples' "rubbish tsar", the former Chief of Italy’s National Police Giovanni Di Gennaro. But he made very limited progress.
In January the Italian government appointed a Naples' "rubbish tsar", the former Chief of Italy’s National Police Giovanni Di Gennaro. But he made very limited progress.
He decided to stop the reopening of old landfills and created some new temporary storage facilities for waste. Besides, he has understood that it is cheaper and more efficient to cart away Naples' waste by ship rather than by freight train to Germany as it was done until a few months ago.
But it is not enough. “Naples is still creating rubbish faster than it can dispose of it" he is used to repeating.
At the same time the European Commission started an enquiry to take court action against Italy which could lead to heavy fines.
The Italian plan appears unsatisfactory. It is still missing a clear indication of sites for treating waste and nothing has been planned for sorting rubbish. The implication of organised crime must not conceal the most direct cause - an absence of action and an absence of political will.
Finally, the “waste emergency” has been revealed as a massive and huge fraud against the local communities and the honest citizens who pay – it seems unbelievable – the highest waste tax in Italy.
The illegal bargains of this fraud-fattened hush-money - local politicians, criminals, entrepreneurs, including some big names of Italian industry such as the Impregilo of the FIAT group, who has recently been charged for non-compliance with contracts signed for the management and disposal of waste in Campania.
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