267. Naples: City of Awe and Rubbish
 |
| Naples- Credits: Wikipedia |
Obviously the gesture of Berlusconi sending the troops to Naples to clear up the rubbish, TWICE, has not gone done very well with the people there since the right-wing candidate in the last Mayor election remained at a paltry 37%.
 |
| The streets of Naples are seldom clear of rubbish |
But the people in Naples had not lost their wits completely and did not re-elect a member of the left-wing Partito Democratico (PD) which after 18 years were unable to keep the rubbish off the streets of the largest historical city centre of Europe, sanctioned as such by UNESCO.
So who did they vote for? The new Mayor elect is Luigi De Magistris, a magistrate who entered politics in 2009 with the independent left wing party Italia dei Valori (IDV). His, is the thankless task of getting the people of Naples to put their rubbish in the appropriate containers and not just stick them in a plastic bag of sorts and throw it in the street.
 |
| Not always is it the people's fault |
Let’s not label the people of Naples as “dirty slobs”, there is more to a bag of garbage (to use an American term) than meets the eye. Behind the inability to keep the rubbish off the streets lies the hand of organized crime, otherwise known as Mafia, Camorra and other appellations.
Collecting rubbish is business in Italy, big business and firms jealously guard their tender. That is why people are coerced in not responding to any authority’s designation on how rubbish is to be collected which in Italy is through the differentiated refuse collection- i.e. a container for glass and tins, one for plastic, one for paper, one for biological stuff and one for objects that cannot be recycled. You can see how that works in the north of Italy here.
A tough job! Berlusconi solved it with getting the troops down there, who by the way, the second time round promptly replied they were not “Bin Collectors” and De Magistris? Being a Magistrate, he should open up a legal inquiry as to why the people do not put stuff in the right containers and why those containers are not collected... But then the legal system in Italy as I’ve often said before, is simply a hopeless mess where we are lucky to see a civil case closed in two decades!
 |
| Capri and Ischia are also in the Province of Naples. But it seems local government there is more under control. Photo: Credits- Wikipedia |
Related articles:
