Rome's waste becomes a case of the State. Literally. After weeks of emergencies and heaps of nauseating rubbish that have now become architectural barriers on impassable roads and sidewalks, perhaps there is a first glimmer. At the request of the mayor, Virginia Raggi, the Ministry of the Environment and the Region are intervening to try not so much to bring the situation back to what would be normal for any city, but to prevent a real health emergency from arising from environmental degradation. The aim, in simple terms, is therefore to ensure that in addition to the patience of citizens, their health is also jeopardized.
The Lazio Region will take care of trying to resolve the emergency led by Nicola Zingaretti (secretary of the PD), forcing all the plants in the area, from those of Pomezia and Castelforte to the San Vittore incinerator, to accept waste from the capital through an ordinance expected for today, 4 July. However, the impositions will also concern Rome: Ama and the Municipality are given 20 days to clean up the city, equipping itself with transfer and transhipment areas, hiring vehicles to replace those that are out of order (we are talking about over 50% of the fleet), paying waiting suppliers, making all existing plants work at full capacity, including the much-opposed mobile shredder of Ostia, which currently processes only 40 tons a day out of a potential 200, and to quickly procure other treatment plants to deal with what has now turned from a waste emergency into a regulation.
If it is not a commissioner, we are close. That of the Region is de facto an ultimatum of the Municipality and its subsidiary in the face of a reality that has now become unsustainable. With temperatures approaching 40 degrees, there is no sidewalk in Rome that can save itself from waste and its nauseating smell. Seagulls and rats have become an integral part of the local fauna, urban decorum just a distant memory. Tourists, less and less incredulous, photograph the heaps of rubbish scattered around the city center as if they were attractions and typical products on a par with the Colosseum or carbonara. The differentiated? A utopia.
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The last few weeks have certified the failure of the environmental management of Ama and the Giunta Raggi, a failure that starts from afar: from the congenital shortage of plants that the current administration has never managed to resolve, instead relying on very expensive contributions outside the region, exacerbated by the December 2018 fire of the Tmb Salario and by the slowdown due to maintenance of Malagrotta . A responsibility that however the Capitol refuses, blaming from time to time on those who were there before or on the Region.
To overthrow the already precarious balance that held little firmly on its feet Ama and the story has arrived then the absurd internal struggle between the Capitol and the former leaders, nominated by Raggi, we underline it. The result? The mayor has decided to expel everyone, leaving Ama without a guide for over three months (the new board of directors, the sixth in the Grillina era, took office only a few weeks ago). Together with the ex ad Bagnacani, Pinuccia Montanari was also put on the door, never replaced, which means that in full emergency Rome finds itself without a waste commissioner.
What about the financial situation. The Capitoline subsidiary has not approved a budget for two years, a reality that prevents the signing of contracts and agreements of any kind. Would you do business with a company having no certainty about the regularity of payments?
Ama is a company in disarray and the clear results of this reality can be seen day after day on the streets of Rome. And the Capitol's accusations against the previous administrations, the Region, or anyone outside of itself no longer hold up. Least of all the conspiracy – Raggi spoke of a "crisis established at the table, perhaps for commercial logic" – or attempts to deny an emergency that is now there for all to see: just two weeks ago the M5S Rome said: "The collection situation in the Municipalities is progressively improving". Perhaps, the time may have come for a first, real, assumption of responsibility. Can you ever see that this change of strategy does not represent a first step towards the ascent.
