Germany Collecting Italy’s Mountains of Trash

The city of Naples, Italy has long had a trash problem. Crazy as it sounds, many in the region blame the mafia, who are said to have filled up local dumps with trash from other countries that they were paid to get rid of. How it got to be so bad in the first place is no longer all that important as the problem has now gotten so extreme, Germany has stepped in to help. The two countries cut a deal allowing Italy to get rid of 160,000 tons of trash by shipping it to Germany for incineration. Most of the waste comes from the Campania region, which includes Naples, the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii. The trash in Naples, especially, has gotten to be a major health hazard, not helped by the fact that residents are starting to burn the trash in the streets, releasing toxic chemicals like dioxin into the air.

From ABC News:

The deal brokered by the two countries means that over the next three months three to four trains per week will arrive at the northern German town of Hamburg after a 45-hour ride all the way from southern Europe, each train bearing some 700 tons of refuse.

Up to 60,000 tons of trash will be collected from the streets of Naples alone, and another 100,000 tons will be made up of household waste from around the Campania area.
Other German cities, like Bremerhaven and Düsseldorf, are partners in the deal. They are sharing the trash in order to put their state-of-the art incinerators to work, but Hamburg can easily handle up to 3,000 tons per week in addition to managing its own trash.

The Italians are reportedly paying approximately $235 per ton, and paying for the transport as well. Hamburg officials admit that the city makes good money helping the Italians.

Germany is warning Italy that this is only a temporary solution, and that they must find other ways to get rid of their trash.

Gee, it’s too bad that there’s no way to cut down on the amount of trash that society throws away. Ironically, Germany had a similar problem years ago and tackled it in a sustainable way – Italy could learn a lesson from them. Germany’s waste management program is so successful, they have saved some 46 million tons of carbon per year since it was put into place in 2005.

Link [ABC News]
Photo credit: Time Magazine / Chris Warde-Jones / Bloomberg

The Swiss Like ‘Em Better In A Zoo: Second to Last Wild Bear in The Country Gets Shot

The Europeans seem to prefer them this way; this bear resides in the zoo in Stockholm. The species this creature belongs to, however, once roamed wild from Ireland to Japan, and from Scandinavia to Africa. The brown bear, as they’re called, is of course scarce is Western Europe now. And a bear that was recently released in Switzerland, where he was one of only two in the country, has come to grief, as MSNBC reports:

Sharpshooters killed one of two wild bears in Switzerland after officials determined it had lost its fear of humans and posed a risk, authorities said Tuesday.

Environmental organizations expressed dismay, but government officials said they had no choice. The 2-year-old brown bear was the younger brother of an animal that met the same fate in Germany’s Bavaria in 2006. Both were part of a project to reintroduce bears to areas of Europe where they had been extinct.

“JJ3 was getting bolder and bolder, and even let people observe him,” said Stefan Engler, president of the canton of Graubuenden. “We saw no other way to influence the behavior of the bear.”

Most people who live in bear country in North America would have to regard this as pretty feeble stuff. Some bears are like this. You have the odd moment of visceral terror, but you live with it.

Still, it’s a miracle that overcivilized Europe has bears at all. Remnant populations of brown bears exist in the mountains in Spain and Italy, and there are a fair number in Eastern Europe, in places like Romania, where former dictator Nicolai Ceausescu liked to shoot them. He is himself well-ventilated now, so maybe the bears pass more peaceful days. Their mere existence is cause for hope.

Link [MSNBC]

Photo: Flickr user M. Prinke.