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Naples officials sent illegal waste for dumping in Germany: probe
Rome (AFP) May 27, 2008 Rubbish from Naples was dumped illegally in Germany thanks to the collusion of Neapolitan officials with local companies, prosecutors said Tuesday. "Through a fraudulent mechanism, some of the waste was illegally buried in Germany in flagrant violation of EU rules," Naples prosecutors said in a statement. Members of the impoverished region's waste commission looked the other way as an official issued authorisations for rubbish to be shipped to Germany without checking the content of shipments, the statement said. The probe involves 26 people including Naples' chief officer Alessandro Pansa, who was special commissioner for the region's chronic waste disposal problem for six months last year, and several waste treatment companies, prosecutors said. The crisis is widely blamed on the local Camorra mafia, who have infiltrated the lucrative waste disposal industry over the last 20 years. Investigating magistrates say they have proof that several companies "with the complicity of government commission officials, were recycling waste in flagrant violation of environmental authorisations" and that dumps "received rubbish other than that they were authorised" to treat. "Commission officials and their accomplices in the treatment companies were fully aware that some of the waste was dangerous," the statement said. The illegal dumping had "extremely serious repercussions on the environment and public health," it added. Pansa, Rome's representative in the southern city, told the ANSA news agency: "I am confident that the investigation will show that I have acted correctly," adding that he had no intention of resigning. While Pansa is at liberty, the other 25 named in the probe were placed under house arrest, the Naples daily Il Mattino said. Among them is Marta Di Gennaro, a national public safety official who worked with Pansa's predecessor Guido Bertolaso in 2006. Bertolaso, now head of the public safety agency, was made a junior minister responsible for the rubbish crisis last week. A "waste disposal state of emergency" has been renewed annually in the Naples region since 1994. Existing dumps are filled to capacity in the region, where there is no incinerator and recyclable waste regularly fails to be sorted. On March 1, the president of the Naples region, Antonio Bassolino, and 27 other officials in the Campania region were placed under investigation for suspected irregularities in the waste management system. Charges include fraud, abuse of power and breach of trust in environmental matters. Their trial began on May 14 in a Naples court. The Camorra are accused of shipping in industrial waste from the north and dumping it illegally in and around Naples Related Links Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up
Protesters allow experts in to potential new Naples-area dump
Naples, Italy (AFP) May 27, 2008Environmental experts on Tuesday began assessing a potential new dump site outside Naples that was the scene of violent protests as authorities grapple with the region's long-running waste disposal crisis. |
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