Tuesday January 22nd, 2008. 4:15 pm by frog
I haven’t written about the two metre high piles of rubbish in the streets of Napoli until now. Aside from the Mafia involvement, the likelihood of the Italian government collapsing and the incredible visual images of a city slowly being buried in its own waste, my abiding impression is of a metaphor for the natural limits of our economies. Eventually, if we keep using and consuming things at the rate we are doing, we run out of holes to hide all the rubbish in. Some places, like Naples, have simply reached that point earlier than others. How long could a typical New Zealand town last if all the places the rubbish could go were already full and no neighbouring towns were that keen to take it?
Posted in Environment & Resource Management | by frog | Tue, January 22nd, 2008 |
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January 23rd, 2008 at 8:16 am
I do not know the stats relating to refuse in urban areas, but on the odd occasion the rubbish collectors may have been on strike the rubbish is disgusting, unhealthy and seriously ugly within a week.
Even in the little town I live in, the council workers change the bin liners in all the council rubbish bins early every morning. As I write, the council collection has just passed along our street. The transfer station is a busy hive of activity on the weekends, with large numbers of us residents dropping off recycling, green garden rubbish plus a few horrible junk items. The mountain of whiteware is very ugly.
The thought of our rubbish having nowhere that is out of sight to go is an unbearable thought.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
It is very commendable that you posted on this at all, given that it is such an abhorrent situation and that the Province of Naples has been controlled by Federazione dei Verdi since 1995.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
This isn’t the first time this has occurred, there was a similar crisis in the city of Chungli in Taiwan in 1997.
There was an Asiaweek magazine article about it, (cached on Google):
http://www.timeinc.net/asiaweek/97/0627/nat3.html - 25k - Cached
That was just as ugly and spectacular.
Similarly after serious flooding in Taipei City after Typhoon Nari struck in late 2001 the streets were piled high with trash (literally the contents of entire houses) for weeks afterwards.
it doesn’t take very much for the ordinary structures of society to breakdown.
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:05 pm
One of my most vivid memories of Napoli was the utterly crazy traffic. Exiting the railway station I was confronted with a total sea of moving cars across a something sort of like a large square, with the realisation that the large bag on my back only made me a larger target.
After that crossing it sure makes you think cars can be beasts that need to be culled to bring them under control.
On the plus side, arriving by boat past Mt Versuivus is a treat, as are the large 4 euro italian pizzas…and the gilati!
January 24th, 2008 at 3:36 am
IMHO the most alarming aspect for environmentalists is the attitude of the people of Naples, if CNN and the BBC have accurately translated their vox pop interviews.
The people of Naples appear to believe that the solution to the rubbish crisis is to freely dump their rubbish in public streets and then wait for the government to solve the problem. No personal responsibility whatsoever. Just passing the buck. Yet another example of a free resource being abused because there is no cost to the individual abuser.
It does raise the interesting question of what would have happened if the streets were owned by a private company. Would they have insisted that the rubbish companies make their collections or pay for the cost of removing the rubbish. If the private street company did nothing would the government have been as willing to sit back and do nothing?
Is this a perfect example of what goes wrong when government monopolises essential services and there is no separation between provider and regulator. Or is this just Italians being Italians? As epitomised by the way they drive, organised chaos. (or chaotic organisation).
January 24th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
You can actually burn most trash and generate electricity. A plant to do this without producing toxic pollutants is expensive, though.