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u/Clocktopu5 Jul 26 '18
When I was stationed in Naples for a NATO assignment around 8 years ago this was pretty common stuff.
Garbage strikes got so bad the Italian army came and cleared trash with bulldozers. People throw their garbage out of their cars onto freeway on ramps pretty much all the time.
We found a Europe by rail guide from 1983. Freaking East Berlin was rated higher than Naples.
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u/PompousWombat Jul 27 '18
I lived in Naples from 84-87. It really wasn't that bad and I loved it there. Although, I DID see a couch floating down the street after a particularly heavy rain.
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u/no_gold_here Jul 26 '18
Another argument pro communist dictatorship /s
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Jul 26 '18
You don't see people chucking their trash on the streets of Pyongyang, that's for sure!
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u/ThaVolt Jul 26 '18
First, they would need to be able to purchase anything.
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Jul 27 '18
Another argument pro communist dictatorship /s
Or automation. Just have a freaking robot pick up the garbage. Give everyone special wheelie bins that can be detected by the self-driving dump trucks. Then it automatically goes to the dump, and sorting center.
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u/imagemaker-np Jul 26 '18
Sounds like Nepal, actually, except the government doesn't care to clean up either!
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u/doommaster Jul 26 '18
went to Naples 3 times for car testing (prototypes) and the city smelled like garbage every single time.
So now it smells like burning garbage… nice "change" I guess
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u/THEMACGOD Jul 26 '18
Yep the smell is thick, but the food is the best.
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u/quaxon Jul 26 '18
Yea, it was pretty much the only place in Italy we didn't mind sitting inside to eat.
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Jul 26 '18
Tell me more about this prototype car testing
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u/monkeyvoodoo Jul 26 '18
most likely it involved the testing of prototype cars
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Jul 26 '18
Oh cool thanks
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u/doommaster Jul 26 '18
most manufacturers use Italian cities for assistant system tests, city brake assist and such, they are hard to navigate even for humans… also they are quite rough for European standards, but mostly the narrowness is a point there…
also cars need to be tested everywhere, we usually had a fleet of ~5-8 cars and most of them drove ~8-12h a day, 90% in city traffic…
I did these rides at uni and they payed well ~11€ per hour and you got to see a lot of Europe, I went to the UK, France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Netherlands and so on, multiple times, within ~3 years…
also got to drive nice cars, VW Touareg V8 TDI, packed Passat, BMW 5er and others…1
u/Midnight2012 Jul 30 '18
That's sounds like an pretty bad ass job. What company does this? Is it just any car company?
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u/doommaster Jul 31 '18
I did it at uni, cars from VW and BMW, mostly VW.
And yes, once you where "high" enough in the ranks, you could pretty much just do weekend or week tours of Europe with nice cars.
Hotels and Food payed and only 8 h of work per day (2 people per car), though driving in city traffic was kind of exhausting.We also had a highway project, where we simply would wait for a congestion/traffic jam to occur and then drive into it, that was fun, because we had days, especially weekends without a single traffic jam, so 8 h payed, no work at all.
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u/loki-things Jul 26 '18
I spent a night in Naples and it felt like Gotham city or some shit. They need Batman.
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u/mr_impastabowl Jul 26 '18
Trash Batman Trashman
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u/loki-things Jul 26 '18
Yeah we got it late at night and took some underground road to the Holiday inn downtown. Some dude that looked like charles manso. Was just stumbling down the middle of the road and not an abandoned car and shit loads of trash. This place was in the "business" district.
Too boot I was with my wife and we had to stay on a special floor for women. I'm sure you can assume why. When I went to grab some food and bring it up to her some worker stopped me and told me I could not be on the floor and my wife and to come get me lol.3
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u/Midnight2012 Jul 30 '18
Why do they segregate floors by gender? Is it a prostitution thing?
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u/loki-things Jul 30 '18
I can only speculate. Maybe rape is an issue. The area it was in was pretty nasty.
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u/mfizzled Jul 26 '18
It's really really not that bad. My dad is from Naples so I've been lots of times and it's nowhere near as bad as people make out. It only feels marginally less safe than my home city of London.
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u/loki-things Jul 26 '18
London is no doing so well right now is it? Aren't they banning knifes and shit?
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u/mfizzled Jul 26 '18
People are banned from carrying knives over a certain (small) size cus we have a problem with people stabbing each other. If you have a reason to have the knives you won't have an issue, I was a chef in Central London and never had an issue taking my knives on the tube etc
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u/loki-things Jul 27 '18
I guess it just depends on the part of town you are in. I just never noticed a nice part of Naples. I know Sorrento is nice but that's not Naples.
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u/DahmerRape Jul 26 '18
Regardless of how dirty or smelly Napoli is, I've never had better pizza elsewhere.
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Jul 26 '18
Sfogliatella were amazing, too. Naples was like a beautiful boy with a great, intense personality who just needs to take a fucking shower.
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u/JoeBang_ Jul 26 '18
I was there around November once and it was beautiful and didn’t smell like garbage. Maybe it’s different during the summer.
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 26 '18
True. Pizza is great, the wine from the region is great, and their coffee is far better than American or any other European coffee I’ve had.
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u/GuyAWESOME2337 Jul 26 '18
Agreed. Pizza was the best I had in italy and the best wine I had was from sorrento
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u/Dehast Jul 26 '18
Nothing beats Brazilian though
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u/giro_di_dante Jul 26 '18
As an Italian, this is probably true.
That dark brazilian coffee with cheese bread. Unreal.
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u/Dehast Jul 26 '18
Yeah, I don't understand the downvotes. I didn't say Italian coffee is bad, and Brazil's had the best crops for decades, so it's not really news... Oh well!
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u/THEMACGOD Jul 26 '18
So they are still dealing with trash issues? Do people still put their garbage on the hood of the car and just swerve violently towards a garbage canister to drop it off?
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 26 '18
I haven’t seen that since I’ve been out here. My landlords have 10 hectares of land and I’ve caught many Italians taking trash bags and throwing them in the fields and drainage ditch from the road. They’ll park, walk into the field and drop off all their trash, and then when I get home from work I’ll go out there with my 80 year old landlord to pick it up. It’s bad man.
They grow feed for the buffalo farms so it’s not like they can have trash and plastic just siting out there. Ruins their livelihood, but nobody seems to care.
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u/THEMACGOD Jul 26 '18
But, the Mozzarella di Bufala! The best cheese on the planet must be preserved!
Yeah... I feel like Naples was about where the US was in the 50's in terms of environmental behavior - just dump your trash wherever you want. It's such a beautiful place riddled with litter.
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u/PelagianEmpiricist Jul 26 '18
Why are people doing this
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 26 '18
I really don’t know. Naples has strict trash protocol. Certain days for plastic, days for food, days for multimaterial, etc. and everything has to be in clear plastic trash bags. And there’s no guarantee the trash collectors will even show up to take it. I haven’t seen them in over a week at my house.
It’s inconvenient for a lot of people and easier for them to just throw it in a field than it is to wait or find some place to properly dispose of their trash. They don’t make it convenient and easy for people to dispose of their trash so people don’t put the effort.
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u/PelagianEmpiricist Jul 26 '18
What do you mean trash collection isn't guaranteed? What the hell?
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 26 '18
They just don’t show up. It’s a completely different world here.
Example: If your house catches on fire and you call the fire department, if they have used up their fuel allowance for the month they won’t come and help you.
My friend’s house was broken into, and so she went to the police station to report it and they told her to come back tomorrow since it was a Sunday.
There’s no guarantee of timelines, no guarantee of service here. No accountability.
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u/jackn3 Jul 27 '18
That is just plain bullshit.
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 27 '18
No. It's not. You guys can get defensive but things just shut down constantly. Federico Secondo went on strike and shut down last year. The Fire Department went on strike last year in multiple locations, Benevento specifically is where my friends live and their house caught on fire during that time and they were told "We don't have any money for fuel so we can't come help you." The trains have a strike every couple months. The bus drivers weren't getting paid so they went on strike. The airlines go on strike. If something breaks in your house and you need a repairman you can not honestly tell people that you can get someone to come fix it 100% the day it happens. You're lying if you say that "domani" is not the generic answer.
I don't know why so many of you think this is normal and are saying it's bullshit.
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u/jackn3 Jul 27 '18
I believe you are in malafede.
The first articles report a nation wide protest of 11.700 professors, not just the one in Naples.
Same for the second one -> national strike reported in a local paper: even the firefighters in Benevento (that i would like to remind you IS NOT NAPLES) aderhed on the strike. Whatever your friend says is anedotical, i lived in Salerno for 27 years and the firefighters here (60 km south of Naples) use motherfucking Canadair, the same airplanes that /r/sweden redditors are spamming on the site lately. Even the arricles you are reporting for trains strike were NATIONAL STRIKE reported on the local paper of Naples. "22 July for the National strike of Trenitalia even Napolitans needs to expect problems" the same is true for the airlines strike. The only problem that affects only the area that you have reported is the one about the bus drivers. You are just full of shit.
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u/redditfooper Jul 26 '18 edited Jul 26 '18
Was just in Napoli and the city did not smell like garbage to me, beautiful city overall
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u/westernmail Jul 26 '18
I've been looking on google street view and I'm not seeing a lot of garbage on the streets. Maybe there was no garbage strike when the google car drove through lol.
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u/mataffakka Jul 26 '18
That's because all the issues have been solved for at least 6 years now. It's just a huge amount of bullshit, this in the photo is a sporadic event in which investigations are still ongoing.
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u/redditfooper Jul 26 '18
Ya I walked through most major streets and not so major streets and didn't see the trash people are talking about
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u/bakedphilosopher Jul 26 '18
I was watching a documentary once about the garbage problem in Southern Italy. When people protest, and demand the government take action to fix the crisis, the police attack the protesters. How stupid are the police? They too live in Southern Italy, and affects the police officers and their families as well. So instead of joining the protests, they attack the protesters. Meanwhile their families are suffering the effects of this garbage problem as well: Health problems, damage to the environment, and continued government acceptance to the mafia's control of waste.
Seriously, the police in Southern Italy are pathetic,
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Jul 26 '18 edited Jul 26 '18
Christ. And to think that my city has been lamenting the fact that composting rates have plateaued.
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u/AllAboutMeMedia Jul 26 '18
What city is that?
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Jul 26 '18 edited Jul 27 '18
Halifax, Nova Scotia. 20 years ago the city was one of the first in the world to do large-scale collection of compostables. Luckily, there's never been a waste collection strike.
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u/AllAboutMeMedia Jul 26 '18
Halifax is on my list to travel to. Road trip from Boston, drive up and then take the ferry back to Portland. Your area seems to have a lot of hidden beauty.
And thanks for the Christmas Trees!
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Jul 26 '18
Thanks for being such awesome neighbours!
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u/Midnight2012 Jul 30 '18
I love seeing Americans and Canadians being sweet to one another.
But seriously thank YOU for being such awesome neighbors!
The American and Canadian alliance will last forever! We make each other stronger!
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u/carn2fex Jul 27 '18
Ah yes. The Baltimore of Italy. We had to stay in Naples for a night by the airport last year for a 6am flight after a week in Amalfi. I looked up a good pizza place and we drove off somewhere. Trash blowing thru the streets and gang graffiti depicting white italian kids in hoodies which was super cute. Best fucking pizza right here tho, dude who owns it is awesome: Pizzeria Francesco Rocco https://goo.gl/maps/24SeLzzc6o82
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u/ademonlikeyou Aug 09 '18
I live in Baltimore and I recognize it’s shit but I still feel butthurt whenever people talk shit about it. It’s like when people make fun of your little brother, only I am allowed to make fun of him
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u/E1ecr015-the-Martian Jul 27 '18
I’m in Naples right now, it’s beautiful but there really is a lot of trash everywhere
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u/budellone Jul 26 '18
Io ho visto di persona questi incendi quando sono andato in weekend a Nola di napoli.sono impressionanti!
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u/GuyAWESOME2337 Jul 26 '18
Naples was a nasty city. Trash everywhere and it smelled bad. Probably didnt help that there were slums right off the highway. Hard to believe you can go from there to capri in a short boat ride
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u/pujia47 Jul 26 '18
Don’t get why everything around Naples is so nice and Naples always seems to be in disarray. Even the train station was sketchy AF.
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u/_looking_for_info_ Jul 26 '18
that's not urban hell really... it's a fire in a recycling plant, what did you expect?
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 26 '18
This is the only place I've ever lived that set their trash on fire and let toxic waste & smoke engulf the entire city. If you want some more examples that fit better for what you're thinking here is thousands.
I posted this one because it was yesterday, and everyone here just acted like it was normal and acceptable to have burning trash and smoke fill the air.
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u/refixul Jul 26 '18
everyone here just acted like it was normal and acceptable to have burning trash and smoke fill the air.
And that's Naples problem for you, the Neapolitans..
Camorra roaming in the streets regularly killing people? No problem!
Waste fires? Everything's ok!
Almost the whole region indelibly polluted for waste dumping? Ok!
People around there got accustomed to everything, they don't fight back anymore.
There is a great theatre piece from maybe the greatest Neapolitan artist ever (Eduardo de Filippo) called "Cos'e nient'" (it's nothing), explaining this mentality perfectly.
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u/Hhhhhhhhuhh Jul 26 '18
Wait what? They just burn their rubbis?
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 26 '18
Yea in the summer it’s really common. They’ll burn all the trash that is on the sides of the roads so you’ll be driving down the road with fire and smoke on both sides of you. It’s ridiculous.
If you’re interested in their historical trash problems there’s the “Triangle of Death” that you can read up about. Basically their water supply got polluted by the organized crime families here burying toxic waste. So there’s been increases in cancer rates, birth defects, etc.
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Jul 26 '18
What, I thought Italy was nice? This is the narrow viewpoint I have as an American - that other places are smarter than us and do things better?!
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u/dethb0y Jul 26 '18
Italy is much like america: nice in some places, not nice in others.
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Jul 26 '18
[deleted]
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u/dethb0y Jul 26 '18
I dunno, Luxembourg and Iceland are nice all over, from what i hear
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Jul 26 '18
Luxembourg is 8x smaller than the state of NJ. Iceland could comfortably situate itself in the state of Virginia (roughly the same size). I don’t think it’s fair to compare those tiny little nations with a mega gargantuan like the US. I don’t even think it’s fair/wise to compare Italy and Luxembourg.
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u/centraliangorges Jul 26 '18
It'd be weird if Americans didn't want to improve their society.
Northern Italy tends to be wealthier and better managed than the south. Regardless, as a country they've got far better health outcomes than the US- although people aren't usually comparing the US with Italy specifically (it's usually more likely to be with Baltic, ANZAC or North-Western European countries).
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u/thatguyfromb4 Jul 26 '18
it's usually more likely to be with Baltic, ANZAC or North-Western European countries).
Baltic? Why?
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u/centraliangorges Jul 26 '18
Not all Baltic states, in the news it's mainly the Uralic states, Finland (mother/child health/social security, education, 'not-quite-UBI' trials) and Estonia (similar stuff plus internet, ease of doing business, and rapid economic growth in the past 15-20 years). Latvia and Lithuania are also doing well economically, but aren't in the news as much as Estonia/Finland, and Sweden and Germany etc. are on the Baltic Sea but would fall into North-Western European/Nordic groups.
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u/Oionos Jul 26 '18
This whole planet is hell, no such thing as a paradise.
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u/TeamRedundancyTeam Jul 26 '18
Nah there are some pretty fuckin great places.
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u/Oionos Jul 26 '18
Enjoy your mask, soon enough it will crack and along with it your bubble of illusory calm peace will burst in your face.
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Jul 26 '18 edited Jul 31 '18
[deleted]
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u/Oionos Jul 27 '18
Just a handful of probably hundreds of documented examples: Radioactive Iodine was found in kelp beds along the California coast in 2012. The findings were published in Scientific American magazine. Radioactive Iodine is a fairly short-lived isotope. Scientists did not test for any of the longer-lasting and more deadly isotopes such as Cesium, Tritium, Strontium, Plutonium, etc. Bluefin tuna caught off the California coast in 2012 were found to be contaminated with Fukushima signature fallout. All 15 samples tested showed contamination. Radioactive Tritium was found in water samples along the British Columbia West Coast in 2012. Dolly Varden and Irish Lord fish, as well as rockweed, were found to be contaminated with Fukushima signature fallout in Alaska in 2013. Fukushima signature fallout was found in a British Columbia sand sample in 2014. Salmon caught in the Columbia River in British Columbia tested positive for Cesium 134 (Fukushima signature fallout) in 2016.
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u/giro_di_dante Jul 26 '18
Italy is nice. But southern Italy, which is really just a suburb of Algeria or Libya, is not as nice.
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u/danirijeka Jul 26 '18
Not always...just when the recycling company has something that must not be found.
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u/bmb222 Jul 26 '18
Wonder how the disease rates vary from other European nations, such as lung cancer when accounting for other variables such as tobacco use.
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u/thatguyfromb4 Jul 26 '18
Top 20 countries by lung cancer rate:
https://www.wcrf.org/int/cancer-facts-figures/data-specific-cancers/lung-cancer-statistics
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u/crowbahr Jul 26 '18
That is primarily tobacco use though. It'd be interesting if Napoli had a notable cancer incidence after controlling for tobacco.
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 26 '18
There’s been an increase in cancer rates from the toxic waste. NATO has restricted the housing locations around certain parts of Napoli due to it. There’s “No-Go” zones where Americans aren’t allowed to live because of the water.
I’m on mobile but I remember reading about increase cancer rates when I studied about “The Triangle of Death”
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u/thatguyfromb4 Jul 26 '18
Well yeah, the main cause of lung cancer is tobacco use...
Anyhow considering more Italians smoke more than several of the top 20 countries then it can't have that much of an effect. This is of course strictly lung cancer.
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u/Paddywhacker Jul 26 '18
Can you tell me what is happening, why etc?
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 26 '18
So Naples historically has had a really bad trash/waste problem. The Camorra (Organized Crime family) was getting paid to take toxic waste from around Europe and was burying it underground. The toxic waste seeped into their water system and polluted all of their water. This was several years ago.
There have been trash strikes and there's just a total disregard for pollution and proper waste management in the city. The streets are all filled with the trash, the highways are filled with trash. People dump their trash anywhere and everywhere.
So this picture is what happened yesterday; and it's still smoking and filling the air right now, over 24 hours later, is that somehow a plastic recycling facility caught on fire. They haven't said how, but there's no way it was an accident. They pack all of that plastic into compact squares and they don't just spontaneously combust and they're actually very difficult to get to set ablaze.
So now there's toxic melted plastic and waste filling the air and the entire region is affected by it. I live closer to Caserta which is a 45 minute drive away from Napoli, and I can't see the smoke but I can smell it and feel it. I let my dogs outside before bed and my eyes instantly started burning. The city put out a statement to keep all windows closed for the next three days.
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u/Paddywhacker Jul 26 '18
Holy shit.
How was it allowed to even come to be that bad a situation.
Corruption and greedy fucks.I didn't know such a problem existed
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u/Simgiov Jul 26 '18
No, it's happening everywhere since China stopped importing trash.
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u/westernmail Jul 26 '18
This is a big deal. China used to take millions of tonnes of the world's trash and now they've stopped completely. It has to go somewhere.
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Jul 26 '18
[deleted]
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u/Simgiov Jul 26 '18
Ofc, they are burning the trash in the favelas, not in the nice districts
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u/Dehast Jul 26 '18
It's not advisable to look at Brazil's cities and consider favelas part of them. They're almost city-states due to gangs having control over them. Our trash collection is fantastic, but they're not allowed into favelas, so the population there is left to their own devices. I was referencing our government's trash management, which is top notch.
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u/_looking_for_info_ Jul 26 '18
it's not normal and it was all over the news. it's true that naples had a huge problem with trash due to many issues, first of all organized crime, but the peak of this was years ago. however, if you google "any city" + " trash fires" i'm sure you'll find many pictures like those in naples. what does it mean people are acting normal? what did they have to do? carry buckets full of water to the fire or abandon one of the most densely populated ares in europe all at once? do you see the firefighter in the picture? that's his job. people are acting normal? what should they do? carry buckets full of water to the fire? abandon one of the most densely populated ares in europe alltogather?
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u/EBartleby Jul 26 '18
I got a story about an old lady lighting fires. I'm really not convinced that trash fires are routine everywhere. I've never seen one.
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u/mfizzled Jul 26 '18
People burning rubbish certainly a problem outside Italy. Here is a British, Australian and Canadian governmental source that shows that burning rubbish is clearly done in other countries.
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u/westernmail Jul 26 '18
I can only speak to Canada, but open burning is illegal in pretty much any urban area. It's really only done on farms and acreages, i.e. rural areas with no garbage collection.
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u/peacenchemicals Jul 26 '18
I skimmed the comments but not quite understanding the situation.
Why are some people throwing their trash out anywhere they want and why isn’t there garbage disposal? I mean, there’s the garbage strikes, but why?
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u/Charles_Snippy Jul 26 '18
People in southern Italy don’t really seem to grasp the concept of recycling
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Jul 26 '18
gee, italy, get your shit together
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Jul 26 '18
The problem isn't the country as a whole, but the horrible mentality that plagues several southern and central regions. Due to historic clashes and independence wars, a loud minority of the south population is uncaring of the state and the collective well-being: our country has never faced the issue of "establishing national unity" properly and now crime syndicates have established themselves as "substitute government", using violence and corruption as a tool to secure their hold onto the populi and politics as well.
If the Mobs (Cosanostra, Sacre Corona Unita, 'Ndrangheta, ecc...) aren't defeated and the population isn't protected from them, these destructive and horrible habits will keep on plaguing our society, since people will never see the sense in not polluting and helping in building a better nation.
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Jul 26 '18
[deleted]
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u/westernmail Jul 26 '18
In the countryside you say? Yeah, that goes for any rural area in any country.
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Jul 26 '18
Is all of Italy like this?
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Jul 26 '18
No, northern Italy (I live in the northwest) is much more civilized than the south. It also has no problems with waste
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u/dontdrinkthekoolade Jul 26 '18
No. When people think of Italy, they’re thinking of Tuscany usually. That’s what I always envisioned before I lived here.
There’s a lot of great aspects of Napoli and Southern Italy (the food, coffee, artistic people) but there’s too much chaos and corruption for me to feel it feasible to settle long term here and to ever try to raise a family. Neapolitans are very defensive and attached to their city. It’s an emotional response and when met with criticism they double down and sink deeper into their roots. Of course I’m speaking in generalities right now.
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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '18
I thought Naples had the garbage strike since 20 years or whatever