I just stumbled on that video on CNN a few minutes ago. Very, very depressing. We have all read about it but to see those photos is stunning. How can people live like that? I know very few have a choice to move or to change such a complex and longstanding culture. But I don't think I'll be headed to the Naples area anytime soon--or ever.
Posts: 456 | Location: Boston MA | Registered: 19 December 2006
Well, news from the areas, my uncles -living in Naples since their birth- say that all is almost cleaned up only few areas are still problematic to solve.
Couple of things about the video.
The video is called Trash in Italy and clai that the people in Italy is oppressed.
The rest of Italy is actually free of this problem, maybe we clean up roads at 11 instead of 9, but most of Italian roads are clean.
The m ilitary that takes the video throws the garbage out like everybody else, if she would have drived 500 meters away she would have found proper collecting areas.
This is not only a Berlusconi problem, this is something that started 15 years ago, and also the other governments haven't done anything. It seems that now something is moving. We'll see.
Another thing, the military keeps talking about the oppression of the Italian people, does she think to occupy us in order to bring us civilization?
I don't know anything about the situation in Naples right now, and whether the video paints an accurate picture of that, but I do agree that the video and the mostly uninformed comments following it give the wrong impression about Italy in general. A lot of people seemed to assume that Italy does not recycle, and we found in Northern Italy at least that recycling was very much a way of life.
Where in northern Italy? I live in northern Italy (Liguria) and recycling is something that's done sometimes voluntarily, when the bins are available, but certainly isn't enforced and not widely done.
When I was in Napoli a couple of years ago, the trash piles and the trash not in piles was shocking. It's not a problem that's going to be solved overnight, especially if organized crime is holding some of the keys.
My experience of traveling in Italy has been that where local communities have good government infrastructure (and often, if they have wealth), towns are spotless. Sometimes, though, the town right next door can obviously be in need of help -- for whatever reason.
When I look at that video, it occurs to me that if somebody took away all the trash bins where I live, people would have no choice but to dump their trash in open spaces. For reasons hard to understand, the placement of trash receptacles in selected parts of Italy is being blocked.
But as everybody knows who has been to Italy, bathroom facilities tend to be the cleanest you'll find in Europe. Whatever is defeating public tidiness in selected parts of Italy is very much at odds with the scrub-sparkle habits of Italian individuals.
This is an interesting article about Berlusconi's promises and efforts to solve Campania's garbage problems. On Tuesday he pledged to remove 18,000 tons of garbage from the region (to solve the problem by the end of the July) and he is sending teams of psychologists to the area -- to what end, I'm having trouble figuring out precisely.
Also, Elizabeth Rosenthal had an interesting article today about the EU and its demands on multiple countries to revamp garbage policies, with an extensive discussion of Napoli and Germany:
There is an incinerator in progress in naples that is identical in design to the one in Hamburg. It has not been worked on for a year. The BBC article wasn't clear if the project had run out of money, too many locals protested against it and so on or what?
Posts: 3853 | Location: St Paul, MN | Registered: 10 February 2006
Certainly in Tuscany. Here is a link to Jane's blog where she writes about recycling. When we have stayed in rentals in that area (including one in Liguria) it was stressed that we had to separate our trash for recycling.
After the experiences we had in Italy, we were somewhat surprised last year in France to find that recycling and separating our trash wasn't mentioned in any of the three apartments we rented.
Related to this issue, is the article recently cited about Pompeii, which says that the Neapolitans are even dumping their trash on top of some of the unexcavated portions of Pompeii.
Yes, well, Tuscany is Tuscany and Liguria is Liguria -- but I suspect it is even more local than that. I actually rent two apartments in Liguria -- one as an internet-capable office, one as a living space. They are in adjacent communes, and I can walk from one to the other. I asked the landlord in one about recycling and he said, I quote: "We don't recycle. We're Italians!" (He said it in Italian.) And indeed, the only bins I have found thus far make no distinctions. But in the adjacent town, receptacles for glass are on offer, and in other parts of town, I've seen ones for paper only -- but it's hit or miss.
Recycling is taken fairly seriously where I live and surrounding areas (in Liguria). Maybe because we are considered a tourist zone, but thankfully people are really good about it. And every trash area I know of has at least 3 bins: humido, plastica & carta (and sometimes vetro). Even in La Spezia this past week, I watched kids in a summer camp, learning how to separate trash. (Was very pleased by that!) It's also a regular feature (how to, where to, etc.) on the local news out of Genova.
I can safely say in my neck of the woods, it is considered important.
Jesus, Farinata, you have strange landlords. He must be one that doesn't do it out of laziness. I guarantee you that bins are available and Italy does recycle.
Many comune in the Naples area HAVE NEVER HAD the possibility to recycle, and now they do. Arzano, which is aside of Naples has startes recently the recycling campaign, as many other comunes, my aunt that lives there say that people drive around with the garbage on their car in order to find the right bin.
Kids learn this in kindergarden, literally. In our kindergardens in Tuscany there are bins for paper and for plastic,that are accessible to all kids that learn to throw away stuff in the right way. My daughter Francesca came home chewing a gum and at a point she asked me where should she throw -ok, imagine her surprise when I told plastic!- we have different bins at home and at the shop, and all people I know do that too, the ones that don't are just plain lazy people.
It is NOT hit or miss, it is research a little better and you'll find, and if there's only few bins available, protest with the comune, but in the meantime drive around and dumpm your garbege in the right places.
In Cortona they do door to door picking up, I live a little outside and I HAVE to drive around with my garbage. But, hey, it is MY garbage and it is MY responsibility not to dump it in the wrong spaces.
In this area we have 4 bins.
Jellow is paper Green is Plastic, metal, glass Brown is organic Silver is unrecyclable
I live up on a hill in the middle of an olive grove. We do not have garbage pick-up, so we take out garbage down to town.
On the roadside there are two garbage cans, a blue bell shaped one for glass, plastic cans etc and the regular garbage. The town has paper pick up on Wednesday's and hands out huge bags for the recycling.
We have a bag and take ours down. since we do not have pickup, we do not pay Garbage tax.
When I was down in Naples last month, the town was clean, but every Wednesday now Berlusconi comes down to talk about the problem and I saw garbage bins knocked down in the street being burned and garbage in the street ( brought in for the protest)
they have cleaned up downtown, but outside it is still a problem.
and in the heat gets worse.
I cannot watch video's on my slow dialup so don't know what they are showing.
Originally posted by dragonpat: There is an incinerator in progress in naples that is identical in design to the one in Hamburg. It has not been worked on for a year. The BBC article wasn't clear if the project had run out of money, too many locals protested against it and so on or what?
It's been finished for awhile. Only thing I've heard is some issue with the waste not being sorted right.
Originally posted by farinata: When I look at that video, it occurs to me that if somebody took away all the trash bins where I live, people would have no choice but to dump their trash in open spaces...
You see, this is what produced the 15 years old emergency -along other and more dramatical reasons , aka Mafia-
Ok, for some unknown reason the bins are not there any longer, so what to do? Certainly not driving to the next bin, the woman in the video claims she drove 250mt, why didn't she drive 500 or 2500mt further? Which is , for instance what I do every day, as the only bin next to my house is a non recycling one, and the recycling ones are 2.5km on the way to Cortona.
Let's all just happily throw everything everywhere,we are justified, there is NO BIN down the street! Oh, there are bins down next 4 street, but not down to mine!
Recycling is an effort, I know, and it can be an hassle, I know, and takes up space and time, but hey WE produce the garbage, we have to take care of it, I know that some people still don't do it, but they are just plainly WRONG! No excuses whatsoever!
The reasons why some areas are out of bins is that there is no agreement with the external companies that do the actual collecting of the trash. And this can happen for various reasons.
Some comune are burdened by other emergencies, some don't want to charge garbage tax and some others just don't think, but the good news is that this is a EU regulation, so even the places that never did it before now HAVE TO take care of it.
Let's just hope it will work everywhere like it works in the majority of the country.
When I was down in Naples last month, the town was clean,
I was in Naples May 26 and May 13. There was still trash piled in more than one piazza that was observable on the cab ride from and to the port. Has it been cleaned up since then in June?
Posts: 3853 | Location: St Paul, MN | Registered: 10 February 2006
I was in Naples in June, I did see some trash around, but also saw garbage being picked up at night!
and as I said,Tuesday was a mess as Wed Berluscomi was arriving!
Also what looked like trash in the streets to me from the train station taking a cab to the hotel, was actually people selling their stuff on the street! but really looked more like garbage!
We went to see Wall.e this a.m. (cute movie) and in the opening scenes I thought about this thread. Wall.e is a heavy duty futurist trash compactor, 700 years from now, who is the only moving thing on earth, well except a cockroach, who has built huge skyscrapers out of compacted trash. I thought about Naples and the comments on the trash and realized it was a timely movie.
Originally posted by Vegas Ms: We went to see Wall.e this a.m. (cute movie) and in the opening scenes I thought about this thread. Wall.e is a heavy duty futurist trash compactor, 700 years from now, who is the only moving thing on earth, well except a cockroach, who has built huge skyscrapers out of compacted trash. I thought about Naples and the comments on the trash and realized it was a timely movie.
Not that timely if you think about all the favelas and garbage places people live of in the third world.
