Naples suffocated by 3,000 tons of waste

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The waste crisis in Naples is degenerating once again as more than 3,000 tons of garbage are piling up on the city's streets, a local official warned on Wednesday.

Naples' urban hygiene councilor Paolo Giacomelli appealed to the solidarity of other nearby towns of the Campania region, which in the following days might accept to host and burn some of Naples' rubbish, ANSA news agency reported.

The emergency in fact does not only concern the city of Naples: in the entire province there are currently more than 8,000 to 9, 000 tons of waste rotting in the roads.

The emergency is set to further worse. On Tuesday the president of the parliamentary inquiry commission on waste treatment Gaetano Pecorella said the following 30 days will be the most critical.

"If the garbage continues to pile up and no sound strategy is launched, in a month's time Naples and its province will face the risk of an environmental catastrophe, suffocated by more than 60, 000 tons of trash on streets. All cities will turn into open-air dumps,"he warned, describing an apocalyptic scenario with mountains of plastic bags covering schools and public buildings.

One of the main dumps on the slope of Mount Vesuvius is already over-spilling with six million tons of collected waste.

The situation is thus critical, especially for hygienic and health-related reasons, while social unrest on the rise.

The region faces the threat of another urban guerrilla outbreak. On Tuesday night the mayor of small village, Boscoreale, was attacked in his car by a group of protesters demonstrating against the transport of waste to nearby dumps. An activist was arrested by the local police.

Recently citizens have been protesting against the opening of a new dump at the town of Terzigno, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius clashing with police while torching garbage trucks and cars.

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