Rome will be as clean as a village in Trentino, Mayor Gualtieri promised two years ago, a few days after the fire at the Tmb Ama in Malagrotta. And yet a year later, in the summer of 2023, the capital was plunged into yet another waste collection crisis. Maybe it’s early and we will be proven wrong by the facts in the coming weeks, but this summer Rome seems cleaner. And in any case for the Romans the priorities to be resolved now seem to be different.
It may not be as shiny and shiny as a small Alpine village, but something actually seems to have improved, at least in the perception of the citizens. So much so that the criticism of the mayor following the announcement of the new ‘Cestò’ rubbish bins seems to focus on other problems in the city. “For goodness sake, the bins are useful, but Rome is a blocked and unliveable city and are we worried about the bins? Okay, but a bit of coherence and seriousness… We would need tons of public transport, cycle paths, not having to wait 20 minutes between one metro and the other… Let’s be serious…”, for example, one of our readers commented.
Lack of public transport, crazy traffic due to the many construction sites, degradation in some areas, including central ones, of the capital. But the complaints about overflowing bins and streets invaded by rubbish have disappeared, or at least taken a back seat in the public debate. The problems in the city, the citizens seem to argue, are now very different.
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Gualtieri has not solved the waste problem in the capital and yet another crisis is always imminent in the event of unforeseen events. Rome’s waste continues to be sent to other regions and abroad due to lack of facilities. A problem of ‘closing the waste cycle’ within the city territory which, as we know, the mayor wants to resolve with the construction of a maxi waste-to-energy plant in the extreme southern suburbs, in Santa Palomba.
It will be ready only after the conclusion of the Jubilee. And in fact for the Capitoline administration and for the Environment Councilor, Sabrina Alfonsi, the Holy Year will be the test: will the garbage collection hold up during the twelve months in which Rome will be invaded by tourists and visitors?
Meanwhile, there are no updated data on separate waste collection, which continues to be far from the target objectives. We reiterate, however: Rome seems to be cleaner, or at least this is the perception, compared to previous years. But another interpretation is possible: the problems concerning traffic, decorum and public transport have increased so much that they overshadow the aspect linked to waste bins and street cleaning.
I have been a professional journalist since 2015 and I cover the news of Rome on Fanpage.it. I did internships at Repubblica.it, Radio Radicale, I founded and directed the web radio ‘Radio Libera Tutti’ and I became a freelance journalist in 2010, collaborating with the local weekly ‘Velletri Oggi’. I attended the Walter Tobagi/Ifg School of Journalism of the State University of Milan, I received a scholarship funded by Google for excellence in journalism and I won the competition ‘A story yet to be told: Peppino Impastato’, organized by International Journalism Festival.
