Naples takes on Mafia to clean streets, China bans plastic bags & the RC church to exhume Padre Pio

Really quite a miscellany of human interest stories this one.

Naples is notorious throughout Europe for its rubbish problem, which for many is blamed on the intransigence of the Comora or Napolitan mafia who sabotage every attempt to provide the city with incineration facilities. Over the Christmas the Italian military were sent into the city to clean up mountains of household waste which quite simply has nowhere to go. Today the Italian state has appointed a "garbage czar" to sort it out. Meanwhile the Peoples' Republic of China is to ban plastic bags in an attempt to stop pollution in its land. Very thought provoking. & there is a spat in Italy between a bishop and family members over plans to exhume & display the body of Padre Pio the patron saint of "January blues".

the Naples trash story really is very interesting for many reasons which will be familiar to Irish readers * corruption * mafia * urban planning * ecology * limits of state control * extent of EU directives * oh yep - tourism for any one day Ireland has literally dozens of commercial travellers, students, senior citizen excursionists & so on so forth enjoying Ryanair carbon footprints tramping up & down the bay sucking their ice creams in Pompeii.

......."taly's Prime Minister Romano Prodi has named a former police chief to tackle a waste crisis in Naples and said three new incinerators will be opened. Protesters in the suburb of Pianura are blocking access to an old rubbish dump that city officials want to reopen because landfill sites are full. There have been no waste collections for more than two weeks in Naples.
More than 100,000 tonnes of rubbish lies rotting in the streets. Mr Prodi said troops would help move it......."
latest news .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7176378.stm
pictures
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7176459.stm

____________________

Chinese to ban plastic bags

, this story has being blowing about for a while now & China is competing against Los Angeles in the USA to be the first place to prohibit them. This is an excerpt from a news report last June : "What clogs waterways, harms bird and marine life, can be found in abundance in the city and the most remote parts of China and takes millions of years to disappear? The answer is plastic bags. It is hard to imagine that something that seems so harmless could be doing so much damage to the environment both in China and globally. Throughout the world 1 trillion bags are used a year, which accounts for over a million a minute. And considering it takes years for them to decompose, the global fight to limit the usage of plastic bags needs to be revved up a notch or two. Plastic bags not only cause visual pollution, who hasn't been witness to plastic bags strewn across riverbanks, floating in waterways and clinging to trees, but they also clog drains which can lead to flooding in urban areas. Wildlife in the marine environment, such as birds and seals, are dying from intestinal blockages resulting from ingesting the bags. The scary thing is that for something that impacts so heavily on the environment, the majority of people don't give plastic bags a second thought. Often they are used only once and thrown out or discarded as litter. This litter in China has been dubbed white pollution, as it is regularly seen blowing around the streets. A push to draw the public's attention to the issue has wielded some positive results - a few years ago it would have been an anomaly to see shoppers carrying home their shopping in cloth bags, but it is happening in China's capital Beijing. This is due to recent campaigns such as major supermarkets in Beijing providing their customers with reusable cloth bags, and different regions embracing No Plastic Bag Days.
Other supermarkets in Beijing are opting for degradable plastic bags. By simply cutting down on the number of bags you use, reusing bags and encouraging your friends, family and colleagues to follow your example, you will be playing an important role in environmental protection in China. An increasing number of people worldwide are refusing to use plastic bags and opting for alternatives. People use backpacks and sports bags from home to carry their shopping, as well as environmentally friendly substitutes. Two such bags are polypropylene bags manufactured from polypropylene gas, a by-product of oil refining, and calico bags made from cotton. Polypropylene bags have a lifespan of up to three years and can be recycled, and calico bags last for one year. Both can hold more shopping than plastic bags......"

& the latest on the story :-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7178287.stm

digging up Padre Pio - really really quite something. I just found out he's the patron saint of depression & not only that but January depression. Wow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7176051.stm
http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Regioni/Puglia.php?id=1.0....54541
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padre_Pio