Fabio Grilli 24 June 2023
Dirty streets, full bins and rubbish on the ground. The postcards that the city continues to offer are not encouraging for its inhabitants and for those who come to spend a few days off in the Eternal City and return home with unflattering memories. With the arrival of summer and the which has now settled decidedly above thirty degrees, the permanence of the uncollected bags becomes more complicated. Because, to the scenes of degradation, the miasmas that many stations emanate are added. The situation is widespread throughout the city, which remains characterized by a common denominator: dirt.
After the meeting with the city councilor
Wanting to provide an initial mapping of waste, it is possible to start from a neighborhood in the southern suburbs of Rome: Spinaceto. Because that’s where, recently, councilor Sabrina Alfonsi met the residents, exasperated by the presence of the garbage that accumulates in the streets. The images coming from the neighborhood, the one that amazed Nanni Moretti for her not being “not bad”, would probably have made the Roman actor and director change his mind. In via Salvatore Lorizzo the bins continue to be surrounded by waste of all sorts, as indeed also happens in via Eroi di Cefalonia where the intervention of a simple “shark” from the Ama risks no longer being sufficient to restore decorum .
Cinecittà and Tor di Mezzavia
In the southeast quadrant of the city, in what is the most populous municipality of Rome, the scenes are nightmarish. In Cinecittà, in via Eudo Giulioli, “on Friday morning the rubbish bins were full – Leonardo, a resident told Romatoday – all around there was a carpet of bulky rubble bags”. In Tor di Mezzavia, on the other hand, “in Piazza Alberto Lupo the sidewalk is regularly invaded by waste in the evening. This morning it was unusually clean and the same thing on via Billi where, behind the dumpsters, an invasion of rubbish forms and reaches the sidewalk,” explained Claudio, a resident. Same scene reported in via Cropano where “today they finally cleaned up but until yesterday you couldn’t even walk on the sidewalk”.
From Don Bosco to Romanina
Delicate situation is reported to Don Bosco. In the main streets of the populous district, waste collection does not seem to be guaranteed on a regular basis. And in fact in via Flavio Stilicone and in via Ponzio Cominio there are piles of bags and bulky waste, including the inevitable mattresses that should be delivered to collection centers and not at street level. Full bins also in via della Stazione Tuscolana and in general in the Appio Tuscolano area and in via Appio Claudio, at the Statuario. Outside the GRA, the situation becomes more complicated. “In via Biagio Petrocelli it seems to live in a favela – commented a resident, author of a substantial photographic report – in Rominina we have piles and piles of waste that are not removed. Even the bins, when they are emptied, are put back on these bags with the risk that they could tip over and injure someone”.
in other territories
A place on the waste map is also conquered by Centocelle. “Some dumpsters are full, others empty but full of bags on the outside, a sign that they have accumulated over the days – testified a resident – the stench is still impressive. Garbage in the heat creates unbreathable smells”. In Ottavia, on the other hand, in the XIV municipality, the door-to-door collection system is clearly in crisis. Keeping the attention on this disservice is Andrea Severini, husband of the former mayor Virginia Raggi who, after showing the evening images, published on his Facebook profile “daytime postcards” of degradation.
Dossier – Inside the waste emergency: more than half of the vehicles breakdown
“Rome is shamefully dirty, but after 20 months in office Gualtieri no longer has an alibi”, so Carpano of Azione in Campidoglio. “Dumpsters across the city are overflowing with uncollected trash because half of AMA’s trucks are broken down and under maintenance. In 20 months, the old management could be wiped out and a major reform launched to relaunch the subsidiary. Has anything been done? Nothing, problems are chased instead of anticipating them. This is what is happening with vehicle maintenance: it turns out that the manager only works badly when the omelette is done” concluded the councillor. There are many, in addition to those mentioned by Carpano, the reasons that are causing waste collection to haywire in the city. Rome is certainly filthy also due to the obsolete means used by the operators of the AMA or because the workshops of the municipal companies have been weakened and also because its workers have not been adequately trained to carry out maintenance that lasts longer than expected. There is also more.
A fragile collection system
“The Capitoline waste management is a very fragile system, for which it suffices that something goes wrong, as happened for example with the faulty press of Ponte Malnome, to crash the service. To this – underlined Maurizio Marchini, of Lila_ Lavoratori Ama – we must add the fact that at the weekend and during the holidays trucks cannot travel on the motorway, delivering waste to plants outside the city. But for this it would be enough to ask the prefect for a derogation, which must be done immediately, otherwise on June 29 we will tell about scenes we have already seen “. Scenes of full bins, carpets of rubbish and miasma. The same images and the same smells that the Romans also report in the last few days throughout the city.