BELLUNO. Marco Da Campo is an all-round ecological operator: he collects waste and spreads the manure, cleans the streets and mows the lawns, takes the roll-off containers from the recycling centers and the logs from the woods. It is also to him, and to those like him, that the communities, and those in the mountains in particular, including vacationers, owe a good part of the well-being they still enjoy.
When Marco was born 29 years ago, the issues of separate waste collection and the need to keep the forest away from homes were still far from imposing themselves as urgent objectives. Dazed by the idea that progress passes through the production, consumption and accumulation of objects which can then be quickly disposed of, we ended up looking with the stench under our nose at the agricultural and livestock sector that seemed the emblem of a world retrograde. Fortunately, someone was saved.
“I remember it as if it were yesterday – says Marco at the table in the family bar, in front of the Voltago church – I was six years old and at six in the evening I was returning home from mass together with a cousin of my father who, with her family, had horses in Miana, under my house, and sawed the lawns. Seeing them in the sun with the lawnmower and with the streaks of sweat running down their foreheads fascinated me. So, that evening, I confided to her that I wanted to attend a school that would teach me to make hay and she told me that there was an agricultural institute in Feltre. That evening I decided that one day I would register there ».
The promise made to himself materialized eight years later. In Feltre, Marco also attended the regional specialization course in animal husbandry. He did it out of interest, but also to have an extra opportunity to spend in the world of work. With the driving licenses he behaved in the same way. At sixteen, the one for the motorcycle to be able to drive a tractor of a certain size on the road.
“After the age of eighteen and after an experience in Parma in a farm owned by people originally from Voltago who taught me to drive the tractor properly – he says – I also got other licenses to be able to drive a wheel loader,” an excavator, a forklift, a truck. I had decided that it was right to invest in myself in order to be as attractive as possible in the eyes of the companies whose doors I could knock on. I also used them as a volunteer of the municipal civil protection group ».
Marco has just finished a long ride aboard a Valpe truck. “I did my 300 kilometers again today – he says with his work clothes still on – I left at noon, went to the Falzarego, then to Cortina, then to Treviso where I unloaded and finally got back up”.
From Parma, where he worked as a tractor driver and was in charge of milking, Marco returned to Voltago “to call home”. After some experiences as an excavator and driver of snow clearing vehicles at local companies and jokers in the home bar – in 2017 he was hired by Valpe Ambiente, the company that collects waste in Agordino and Sedico and now also in the Valley del Boite and Feltre area.
“I’m the youngest employee in the company by far,” he says proudly. Then he continues with self-irony: «I always go through the“ bòcia ”on duty:“ Send the bòcia there, this one does the bòcia ”».
The bòcia di Valpe, in fact, does a bit of everything. Marco defines himself as “polyvalent”. «I don’t have a single job – he explains – sometimes I carry out the door-to-door collection and supply bins to users, others I take care of cleaning the streets with the sweeper, still others I reach the recycling centers to take away the full bins. There are days when I get up at 3 and others that start at noon. I really like what I do: I have a good pay, I work 7 hours and 36 a day and therefore I have a lot of free time left to devote to my passions. What if I have trouble working in the garbage business? Absolutely not, on the contrary I am grateful to have a job and I don’t mind getting up at 3. I think we are in a period in which there is not a crisis of work, but of workers. Between Luxottica which gives everything to its employees and the citizenship income, there is no longer the desire to go out at 3, perhaps in the rain, to do a job that is fundamental for the community ».
This, however, seems aware of this importance. «The people – underlines Marco – are grateful for the service we do. He always greets me and I happen to stop for a coffee and exchange a word with the people I empty the bin ”.
From his privileged point of view, Marco has words of praise for the citizens, even if someone could do more. «Young people are the best at sorting – he says – and even private users in general are very loyal. As for the tourist-commercial ones, there is still a little way to go ». While walking along the road that takes him between the narrow streets of the historic centers or in the plains for the unloading of the bins, Marco has the opportunity on the one hand to know places he did not know existed (“before – he admits – I did not know how to reach this and that other step, now I have a clear map of the province in my head “), on the other hand to think about what awaits him in Voltago. On other roads, dirt or grassy.
«In 2014 – he says – together with my father Duilio and my uncles Angelo and Ilario we bought a tractor equipped with the equipment for cleaning our woods; two years later we made the “update” to have more possibilities both in cleaning the lawns and in clearing snow ».
The day we spoke to agree on the date of the chat, Marco was “pulling the lawns.” Between those of him and those that some private individuals have entrusted to him, he has eight hectares. «I started with 5 thousand square meters around the house – he says – then when Sergio Brenna had the stable with the goats and alone he could not reconcile the care of the animals with the cleaning of the lawn, I decided to give him a hand. He later shut down, but I kept cutting the grass and then gave the hay to another farm. Over time, other owners have entrusted me with their particles to make hay. Someone was more reluctant, but then, when he saw how I worked, he was convinced and the following year he came to ask me if I could saw his too. Setting up my own business? Starting from scratch is too difficult at the bureaucratic level and then in Voltago there is no place ».
For Marco, who as a municipal councilor is dealing with the management of the woods affected by Vaia and with the idea of restoring the Frassené plain, it is a question of love for the territory. He struggles to define it and then tries to translate it asking for help from the senses. «When I cut the grass – he says – the smell lingers in the village for days. The smell of hay is a godsend. The territory continues to change: first there is the green and shiny grass, then it turns yellow, then the flowers sprout, then the swaths and hay bales, which put me in a good mood, decorate it, then when I spread the manure it remains all black for 3-4 days and in the air there is that acrid smell that ends with the sweet ». You can smell it as long as the stench under your nose is gone in the meantime. –
Unlimited access to all site content
3 months for € 1, then € 2.99 per month for 3 months
Unlock unlimited access to all content on the site