It’s uncanny how quickly it happened. Within two days of leaving Roma, I was firmly, undeniably, in the South. How could I tell? I’m sure there are all kinds of markers, subtle and obvious, that I managed to neglect. But one jumps out above all the others: the garbage. In the spring, when I started in Basilicata and Puglia, I was amazed by the beauty of the places I walked through, but also discouraged by the garbage strewed along so many roads. Even the beaches were often tarnished with trash. At some point, though, as I moved northward, the garbage disappeared. Never completely, of course; that’s an impossible standard. But the deliberate, wanton dumps on public land largely went away.
And now, that pattern has reversed. From the Aosta Valley to Roma, littering was rare enough that I could once again focus my consternation on pilgrims leaving toilet paper behind in covert bathroom spots. Now, such grievances seem quaint. As I looped around Macerata Campania this morning, and then cut south through Marcianise, I slogged past one dump site after another. Old kitchen wares. Automotive parts. Bags and bags of household waste. Construction waste, too, which I later learned includes asbestos in many cases. Some of that garbage had clearly been burned–apparently, it turns out, for pragmatic reasons, like to strip the copper from wiring.
I’m leery of writing about this kind of thing, as I don’t want to denigrate a country as a visitor, especially with only limited understanding of the larger forces at work. At the same time, though, this is an undeniable part of the story of Southern Italy, and it continued to follow me throughout the morning, as I passed under an expressway and trainline, and then circled past an industrial park.
It’s readily apparent, as I move deeper into the region of Campania, that the economic picture has shifted, but I didn’t appreciate quite how significant the change is. Consider this: when I entered Italy in the Aosta Valley, the average annual income for residents there was around €42,000 euros. Skipping southward to Tuscany, income drops a little, to between €30 and €35,000. Rome sits between those two, with an average range spanning €34 and €40,000 annually. It’s worth pausing at this point to acknowledge that, as an American, Italian wages are shockingly low.
But then consider Campania. If we pull out the extreme outliers, in fashionable hotspots like Sorrento and Positano, then we end up with two tentpole figures. Most neighborhoods in Naples sit smack dab around the mid-level for the region, at €23,000. Head out into the country, though, and some of the outlying towns, and the figure plummets to below €13,000. A year.
Sorry, I need to write that again: €13,000 a year.
So before anything else, this point has to be emphasized in any discussion of garbage in Southern Italy. Resources are limited. Who’s feeling good about shelling out the euros to properly dispose of that old refrigerator? I found myself pondering that question in a most unexpected location: a modern, fashionable shopping mall, complete with a Starbucks and air conditioning. All around me were well-heeled, smartly dressed Italians, enjoying a little retail therapy on a Sunday afternoon.
Unfortunately, the garbage-related problems in this region go far beyond some small-scale, illicit dumping. After all, this is the place that gave the world the “triangle of death.” And indeed, as I marched southward from the mall, I walked right across that, first passing through the town of Acerra and then finishing next to Casalnuovo di Napoli. Forget about refrigerators. The Camorra mafia had discovered that there was big money in toxic waste–and with good reason, as that stuff is staggeringly expensive to dispose of with any semblance of safety. And of course, the profits only climb higher when you disregard safety entirely. For example, the Mafia processed 800 tons of hydrocarbon-contaminated soil for 25 cents per kilogram, a full 80% below the standard market rate.
They could afford that because they arranged for the waste to be dumped, burned, and buried out here, poisoning vast swathes of farmland and groundwater in the process. This unfolded over the 1990s and early 2000s, and by the end of that time the consequences were already becoming tragically apparent, in farm animals and children alike. In 2021, Italy’s higher health institute reported that the death rate in this area was 9% higher than the rest of the country, due largely to malignant tumours and respiratory diseases.
Élise Lobbedez and colleagues observe that waste in Italy is simultaneously “a worthless surplus and a lucrative commodity.” For businesses, waste is a “negative externality,” something unpleasant that has to be dealt with, but requires no special consideration–just the minimum necessary processing. And yet, the mafia realized that great profit lurked here, as it represented an essential public service that had practically no oversight. The only thing stopping flagrant abuse of intended environmental protections was moral restraint and, well, that wasn’t going to be a problem. To make matters worse, an Italian law in 1997 delegated responsibility for waste management to each region. The problem with this is that poorer regions–like Campania–lack the funds of their northern peers. Even worse, many of those northern regions have found that the cheapest way to manage their waste is to simply ship it to Campania or its southern neighbors. The mafia offers excellent rates. And even if Italian regulations grow more onerous, Tunisia is just across the Mediterranean–and it has proven to be equally welcoming.
Walking around the neighborhood this afternoon, it felt like a different Italy. People live in secluded courtyards, tucked away deep within fortified gates. Few people are out and about walking; on the contrary, most movement seems to take place in cars. There’s no center here; the houses sprawl, caught in the midst of this exurban expanse between Naples and Caserta. Even the newer construction has high iron fences, with parking for all cars securely inside.
Oddly enough, today is the day that feels most similar to my walk across the USA.
