There is one indisputable fact about the management of waste sent from Italy to the public incineration plant of Trieste: there is no agreement about it between the Italian Government, in charge of the provisional administration of the Free Territory of Trieste, and the Italian State.
Without keeping this fundamental fact into account, we risk to be deceived by the usual propagandas of Italian media. The right question here is: would Switzerland accept just any waste sent to it from the Italian regions under the strictest control of organized criminality?
But of course this is not just about Switzerland. Any State would think at least twice before accepting a load of pollutants of unknown origin, kind, and not subject to strict quality control (or likely forged, this being a common case in Italy). And, before doing so (only if it were possible, and upon reliable controls on the imported material) it would likely apply strict conditions, requiring also an economic compensation so the operation, which remains very risky for the environment and for public health, is at lest remunerative. Because that waste remains within its territory forever.
But none of this happens in Trieste, capital city of the Free Territory of Trieste – FTT. The decision about how to use the territory of this little State is been since long taken. At least since the Italian Government was sub-entrusted with its temporary civil administration, in 1954. Since then, the main and special “duty” of the Free Territory is to be a landfill site for the waste that Italy does not know where to ship or how to dispose of.
And so, as illegal activities have bloomed thanks to the lack of agreements between the two concerned States (Italy and the FTT), as years passed Trieste became the favorite, and the final destination of all the waste that nobody, no one wants in their own land. All of this also thanks to the complicity of a local political establishment submissive to those who were at work to destroy the economy and the environment of the Free Territory of Trieste.
And the story continues. After being polluted by landfills anywhere from the Karst, with its ponors and caves filled with waste, to the sea with underwater landfills, while hazardous substances kept leaking in its environment, the Free Territory of Trieste appears as being still the relive valve of the unresolved environmental emergencies of bordering Italy.
This is how the Trieste incineration plant is still used to dispose of waste from allover Italy, especially from Campania, Lazio, Tuscany, Veneto, and Lombardy. It is at least 50,000 tonnages per year. And of course there are no economic compensation, because in spite of public health, all the money earned from this operation goes to the Italian company that local politicians have put in charge of managing the incineration plant of the Free Territory of Trieste.
Translated from blog “Ambiente e Legalità” – “Environment and Legality” by Roberto Giurastante