There were 1,049 fires recorded in 2022 in the “Land of Fires”, the area between the provinces of Naples and Caserta, tormented by the fires. The recorded events are 873 in the province of Naples and 176 in the Caserta area with a significant drop compared to 2021 when there were 1,406 and 2,041 fires in 2020. The 2022 Annual Report of the Responsible for contrasting the phenomenon of waste burning in Campania. An extra ordinary figure, appointed by the Minister of the Interior with his own decree.
Historical report and control actions
Until the figure of the person in charge was established, the number of waste fires exceeded 4,000 a year, and from 2013 onwards it stabilized at around 2,000 a year. For the 2022 Report, the enormous effort made by the Land of Fires Contingent of the Italian Army, by the police forces and by many local police forces was significant. There is talk of a “very significant increase, still on the average of the previous two years, of checks and seizures on companies (+48%) and vehicles (+34%) of complaints to the Judicial Authority (+30%) and of sanctions administrative (+95%). During the checks and patrols (16,365) 3 people were arrested while another 453 were reported. During the year, military and law enforcement patrols checked 1,840 vehicles, 804 of which were seized. In summary, it is believed that the reduction of the phenomenon of waste burning in the Campania region is due almost exclusively to law enforcement activities.
But the abandonment of waste continues
On the other hand, according to the 2022 Report, the abandonment of waste continues on the territory, in landfills or on the side of the roads. Indeed, we speak more precisely of the “leakage” of waste from legal circuits. This is also due to the lack of waste disposal plants: it is enough to remember that Campania is the Italian and European region with the highest tonnage of waste exported to other destinations, with a high rate of evasion of the TARI (waste tax) which precisely in “Land of Fires” it reaches higher values at a national level.
Illegal spills of underground businesses
There also remains the problem of the presence of entrepreneurial activities (commercial, manufacturing and agricultural) that work “on the black” or that in any case find it preferable to confer their processing waste through the cheapest illegal circuits.
Nappi (Lega): “Didn’t the Land of Fires disappear?”
«The latest data released on Terra dei Fuego confirm once again that this vast area of Campania continues to experience an emergency situation in terms of environmental pollution. Yet, according to De Luca, the Land of Fires would have disappeared as early as 2021 with Campania which would have long since become the purest region in Italy », says Severino Nappi, group leader of the League in the Campania regional council.