Vienna's Spittelau waste incineration plant a model for Naples

Vienna Mayor Michael Häupl is to help rid the garbage-plagued people of Naples of their fear of a waste incineration plant.

Invitation to Naples

Michael Häupl has been specially invited to hold a lecture in Naples, when he will present Vienna's Spittelau waste incineration plant to the people of Naples. For years now, garbage has been disposed of cleanly and ecologically at Spittelau, and the heat generated in the process used for district heating. "Vienna's waste incineration plant is located not far from a hospital and a university," explains Naples Mayor Rosa Russo Jervolino. In Naples Spittelau could therefore serve as a model of ecological waste incineration in an urban centre. Mayor Häupl will help rid the Neapolitans of their fear of such waste incineration plants, and demonstrate to them that they do not pose a threat to public health.

Exemplary Vienna

The local administration and environmental experts from Naples are also keen to establish contact with experts in Vienna. There are plans for a delegation from Naples to visit Vienna, where consultative talks on modern waste disposal are to be held. Vienna is exemplary, thanks to its modern, ecological recycling and disposal systems, they say.

Matteo Renzi, President of the province of Florence, visited Vienna as long ago as January this year, when he also inspected Spittelau waste incineration plant. In Florence, the plant will serve as a model for a new plant which is scheduled to be constructed in the district of Sesto Fiorentino.

Plans for new plant

There are now plans for the construction of a new waste incineration plant in Agnano on the site of a former American military base. This autumn, the construction of a waste incineration plant will be continued in Acerra, some 15 kilometres north-east of Naples. The plant is destined to be the largest in Europe, though its construction was stopped by protests by local inhabitants.

All the garbage dumps in the Naples region are already overflowing, and waste can no longer be disposed of because there are no plants available. So far it has been impossible to open new ones due to violent protests from the people of the city. In the meantime, the local mafia has been dealing illegally in garbage, aggravating an ongoing crisis that has already lasted for ten years. The local people have become increasingly bitter. The European Union has repeatedly threatened sanctions, but there is as yet no sign of a final solution to the problem.

Expensive contaminated sites

The removal of the mountains of garbage will be expensive for both Naples and Italy. Disposing of them costs hundreds of millions of euros every year. Just transporting the garbage to Germany by rail costs 350 euros per tonne. A total of 150 million euros are currently available for the solution of this acute emergency. However, in the future the government in Rome intends to work on preventing it. Avoiding waste will be widely propagated, and the use of plastic carrying bags will be reduced, as it already has been in Spain, Greece and France, and disposable packaging banned.

Naples is Italy's third largest city, and officially has a population of about a million people. However, together with its environs, there are estimated to be about four and a half million inhabitants due to the fact that many people live there unregistered.



See also:Vienna model to help Italy solve garbage crisis