In January 2008 the Italian army was called in to Naples. The reason? Local authorities needed help in removing the growing mountains of garbage in the city. Meanwhile residents had already begun burning trash piled up in front of their doorsteps and were involved in clashes with the police.



The causes of this atypical "resource conflict" can be traced back to the early 1990s. For a long time the Mafia reportedly controlled most of the waste collection in the region. Through bribery it was able to maintain its stranglehold on this billion dollar industry despite not adhering to environmental norms. After several landfills were finally closed following court orders and an investigation was launched, the remaining disposal facilities were unable to cope with the waste. Residents resisted the construction of new waste dumps for health reasons. The incidence of cancer around former landfills, for instance, is 12-24 percent higher than the Italian average. However, since waste accumulating on the streets is also a health hazard the residents decided to burn it, resulting in the events described above.



On closer examination, the symptoms of this crisis are parallel to those underlying state collapse: ineffectual local administration, corruption, poor law enforcement, locally contained escalation of violence, loss of legitimacy for the government and even the use of extreme methods (army). The EU has now intervened in the matter as well. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas threatened to initiate legal proceedings against the Italian government for failing to adequately implement EU environmental and waste legislation. With this step the "waste crisis" would no longer be just a regional issue. It remains to be seen whether we are witnessing the emergence of an entirely new kind of conflict resource as compared to the widespread debate relating to the extraction of natural resources. All the same, this crisis played at most a marginal role in the fall of the Prodi government in January 2008. (Achim Maas)



For more information see

http://www.euractiv.com/en/environment/eu-threatens-italy-fines-waste-crisis/article-169658



The speech of Environment Commissioner Dimas can be accessed here.

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, February 2008