Conflict in Campania: Waste emergency or crisis of democracy

Abstract

In 2008, the Italian Government issued a decree according to which obstructions or protests in the vicinity of landfills or incinerators became a penal felony. This was the outcome of a long process that began fifteen years before when regional waste treatment facilities became unable to cope with the waste accumulated in the region of Campania. This article studies the history of this conflict in order to identify a range of values and concerns about nature, health and democracy. It asserts that the decision-making process adopted by subsequent Italian governments, alongside repressive laws, oversimplified a complex crisis and obscured different emergent perspectives and values. Ultimately, denying the will of a large part of the population caused increased social unrest.

Full text

Conflict in Campania: Waste emergency or crisis of democracy
Giacomo D'Alisa
a,
⁎, David Burgalassi
b,1
, Hali Healy
c,2
, Mariana Walter
c,2
a
Università di Foggia, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Matematiche e Statistiche, Largo Giovanni Paolo II (71110) Foggia, Italy
b
University of Pisa, Department of Economics, Via Ridolfi10, 56124 Pisa, Italy
c
Institut de Ciència I Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ICTA, Bellaterra (08193), Spain
abstractarticle info
Article history:
Received 2 November 2009
Received in revised form 18 June 2010
Accepted 20 June 2010
Available online 23 July 2010
Keywords:
Post-normal science
Environmental conflict
Environmental justice
Waste management
Hazardous and urban waste
Health
Democracy
In 2008, the Italian Government issued a decree according to which obstructions or protests in the vicinity of
landfills or incinerators became a penal felony. This was the outcome of a long process that began fifteen
years before when regional waste treatment facilities became unable to cope with the waste accumulated in
the region of Campania. This article studies the history of this conflict in order to identify a range of values
and concerns about nature, health and democracy. It asserts that the decision-making process adopted by
subsequent Italian governments, alongside repressive laws, oversimplified a complex crisis and obscured
different emergent perspectives and values. Ultimately, denying the will of a large part of the population
caused increased social unrest.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
On May 2008, under decree no. 90 issued by the Italian
Government, protests taking place in the vicinity of landfills,
incinerators or any plant related to waste management became a
penal felony. After fifteen years of unsuccessful attempts to solve the
waste management crisis in the region of Campania, and after eleven
appointed National Commissaries, hundreds of local demonstrations
and even guerrilla insurgencies, this decree was the solution devised
by the Italian government to handle increasing social unrest and to
repair the damage done to Italy's international image.
The Italian Prime Minister declared that “the emergency is now
over”as the streets of Naples were now clean (EDIE, 2008)
3
. This
statement mirrored a perspective shared by the majority of Italian
policy-makers and conveyed by international media (The Economist,
January 10, 2008), that the problem was one of inefficient waste
management and had to do with the inability of Campania's
inhabitants to implement household waste separation.
However, the Campania case has inspired a diversity of studies –
by NGOs, activists, government institutions, historians, and social and
medical scientists –from which a much more complex picture
emerges. These documents have focused on distinct angles of the
conflict: the importance of the toxic waste trade between the camorra
(the regional mafia) and corporations across Italy and Europe
(Fontana et al., 2008; Iacuelli, 2007), legal analyses (Lucarelli,
2007a,b,c; Raimondi, 2007), health risks and epidemiological assess-
ments (Fazzo et al., 2008; Martuzzi et al., 2008; Senior and Mazza,
2004; Comella, 2007), the impacts of landfill sites (de Medici, 2007;
Ortolani, 2008), the institutional responsibilities of waste misman-
agement (Rabitti, 2008), the emergence of the inter-linkages between
society and nature in environmental conflicts (Armiero, 2008), the
role of activism (Musella, 2008), and the political implications of the
crisis (Barbieri and Piglionica, 2007).
Building on these studies, this paper aims to give an overview of
the diversity of perspectives, and range of values and beliefs at stake
throughout the conflict. This allows us to reveal how the complexity of
the conflict was inadequately addressed by official decision-making
procedures. Rather, politicians, public authorities and media have
promoted a simplistic view which has served as a foundation for
policies that do not address the roots of the problem, have negative
environmental and social impacts, are barely legal (if not illegal) and
erode democracy.
Grounded in a post-normal science (PNS) approach, the present
article highlights that the official resolution of the ongoing environ-
mental conflict is unacceptable from political, social and ecological
points of view. The authors stress the need to shift away from the
current top-down approach of the National and Regional Govern-
ments and their reductionist and technically-led methods, to others
Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 239–249
⁎Corresponding author. Tel.: + 39 881 75 3730; fax: + 39 881 77 5616.
E-mail addresses: giacomo_dalisa@yahoo.it (G. D'Alisa), d.burgalassi@ec.unipi.it
(D. Burgalassi), halilooyah@yahoo.com (H. Healy), mariana.walter@uab.es (M. Walter).
1
Tel.: +39 050 22 16 372; fax: + 39 050 22 16 384.
2
Tel.: +34 93 581 29 74; fax: + 34 93 581 33 31.
3
Also listen to the declaration of the Italian Prime Minister: http://www.govern-
oberlusconi.it/page.php?idf=450&ids=451.
0921-8009/$ –see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2010.06.021
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Ecological Economics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon

more sensitive to the complexity of the Campania case. The approach
adopted so far has obscured dangers posed to environmental and
public health, and ignored repeated calls for community involve-
ment in decision-making processes. In contrast, the current study
elucidates the presence of a multiplicity of legitimate perspectives
(Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1994a; Giampietro, 2003; Munda, 2004) held
by different actors and above all the irreducible uncertainty charac-
teristic of the emergent problems.
In this vein, the paper constructs a narrative that reflects the
complexity of Campania's waste crisis. We propose a new conceptu-
alization of the conflict, one embedded in a complex social system
framework (Gallopín et al., 2001), that includes the values and
concerns of lay people in environmental governance processes
(Delgado and Strand, 2010). The purpose of this research is therefore
not only to document what is happening in Campania, but to provide
an improved understanding of and sensitivity to the issues of
uncertainty, quality and complexity.
The paper is organized into five sections. Section 2 presents the
PNS framework, the background of our case study analysis, and
describes the methods chosen to approach and characterise the
conflict. Section 3 develops a contextual analysis, first describing the
geographical, economic and institutional features of Campania and
then deconstructing the main processes underlying the conflict.
Section 4 discusses the history of the conflict and the core issues at
stake, making explicit the multidimensionality of the crisis and its
irreducibility to a single problem. Finally, Section 5 concludes by
denouncing the repressive resolution of the problem as unacceptable
from both political and ecological points of view, and proposing a
more inclusive procedure whereby the different actors at different
scales assume responsibilities through a deliberative approach.
2. Background and methods
2.1. Post-normal science
The “Post-normal”epistemological framework (PNS) analyses the
limitations of “normal”science approaches when facts are uncertain,
values are in dispute, stakes are high and decisions are urgent
(Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1994a,b, 1997, 2002; Ravetz and Funtowicz,
1999; Gallopín et al., 2001). Normal Science (NS), according to Kuhn,
is a puzzle-solving attempt to force nature to fit within a certain
paradigm “predicated on the assumption that the scientific commu-
nity knows what the world is like”(Kuhn, 1978, p. 23), quality assured
by evaluation by peers. In contrast PNS emphasizes irreducible
uncertainty, multiple perspectives and quality assurance by an
“extended peer community”. The latter refers to the expansion of
the peer group beyond certified experts to include all those with a
stake in the issue such as “judges, journalists, scientists from other
fields or just citizens”(Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1994a p. 204). Such an
extension improves the democracy of science for governance and
enhances the quality of the process and the outcomes.
As far as decision-making is concerned advocates of PNS argue that
to face socio-environmental issues a change in approach is needed,
from seeking an optimal solution, where single perspectives and
criteria lead the process, to seeking the wisest solution, where
multiple perspectives allow for a better understanding of the problem
(Giampietro, 2003).
In this context, we see a shift of emphasis from a “community of
experts”(i.e. scientific peer community) in NS to an “expert
community”(i.e. extended peer community) in PNS; the former is
led by certified experts, while the latter emerges from a quality
assessment of the political process able to articulate “extended facts”,
i.e. the diversity of knowledge (e.g. scientific, local), values (e.g.
economic, ethical) and beliefs (e.g. material, spiritual) at stake (Ravetz
and Funtowicz, 1999).
The complexity of the waste crisis in Campania requires a PNS
approach to elucidate the multidimensional aspects of the whole story
and to avoid the application of reductionist policies in the future.
Inspired by a PNS framework we try to express the plurality of
epistemological (non-equivalent observers) and ontological (non-
equivalent observations) views in the Campania waste conflict
(Giampietro, 2003; Giampietro et al., 2006). This approach allows us
to move some steps towards a more complex definition of the crisis, as
perceived by the various social actors according to actual knowledge,
being prudent in relation to the unavoidable existence of uncertainty
and ignorance (Giampietro, 2003).
2.2. Methods
In order to reconstruct the Campania case and to identify the
different actors and their values and beliefs, we have developed
a narrative based on diverse primary and secondary sources.
Research was carried out in three stages. First, an initial collection
and analysis of documents including official waste figures and trends
in Europe, Italy and Campania, government acts, newspaper articles,
video documentaries, journal articles, internet web pages, and NGO
dossiers was done. This allowed us to characterize Campania's
institutions, geography and economy, giving particular attention to
waste production and treatment trends, and land use and landscape
impacts.
Second, primary direct information was collected via “participant
observing”(Cattaneo, 2006; D'Alisa, 2010). This method stresses the
participative role of the observer and the fact that the resulting
observations emerge from the reflective ability of the participant. In
this vein, the motivation of the participant is activism and the
academic outcome is a by-product of this activism. D'Alisa has actively
taken part in the Campania conflict since 2003 and has had access to a
vast amount of documentation accumulated by activists and local
organizations. During the second half of 2008, following a strategy
designed by the all the authors (objectives and questionnaire
structure), he conducted extensive discussions with local activists to
identify with them the main events in the conflict and the main values
at stake. What is relevant methodologically is not simply the access to
these activist sources of information, but the fact that this conflict is
part of D´Alisa's biography. Paraphrasing Armiero (2008), we were
able to see the waste conflict like a protester. Hence, we approached
the socio-natural processes through the lens of the conflict, which
allowed us to expose the role of nature and society and the power
relations informing them (Armiero, 2008).
Third, we compared conflicting interpretations of events, descrip-
tions of the values at stake over time and their relevance to the current
state of affairs. An extended chronological description of the conflict
was built identifying the key events, actors and issues at stake (Miles
and Huberman, 1994), followed by an in-depth discussion aimed at
delimiting, defining and characterizing the key stages of Campania's
waste crisis. This analytical process allowed us to present our own
narrative and understanding taking into account the different values
and their weak commensurability (Martinez-Alier et al., 1998).
3. The Campania waste crisis
3.1. Context analysis
Campania is a region in the southern part of Italy and the city of
Naples is its capital. According to Svimez,the metropolitan area of
Naples (Fig. 1a, b), which covers less than 20% of Campania's surface
(Smarrazzo, 1999), accounts for 80% of the total regional population
(about 4.5 out of 5.8 million people). Metropolitan area of Naples is
the most densely populated area in Italy and one of the most in
Europe, with an average density of about 2000 habitants per km
2
,
240 G. D'Alisa et al. / Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 239–249

increasing to 8500 in the central district, which holds one million
inhabitants (Istat, 2005).
The waste conflict addressed by this paper takes place mainly in
this metropolitan area, a large and complex urban–rural system
where more than 4 million inhabitants, agriculture, food production,
industry, waste treatment and disposal activities coexist. Agriculture
and food production industries play an important role in the economy
of Campania, with more than half (54.80%) of the total regional
surface under cultivation (Campania region, 2005b). This relates to
the high fertility of land in the region
4
. In terms of GDP (in 2004 total
GDP in Campania was 83 M€), Campania contributes to 8% (2.5 M€)of
Italy's added value to the agriculture sector (32 M€). Contributions to
national added value of industry and services sectors are lower
(respectively 5% and 7%). One of the most important economic
activities in Campania is food production (pasta, tomatoes, citrus and
other fruits, and dairy products), mainly by small and medium
enterprises, with fruit and vegetable production constituting almost
40% of total agricultural production. Exports of primary and food
industry products show a growth trend (1.3 M€in 2001), which
allows for a positive balance of trade in the sector (+5%), while in the
rest of Italy trends are negative (−17%) (Campania Region, 2007). The
sector also influences livelihoods in the region. In Campania 110,543
people work in agriculture (2001 data), almost 7.5% of its population,
compared to less than 5.5% for Italy as a whole (Istat, 2005).
The agro-industrial profile system and landscape of the region is
being affected by the provision of new waste storage and treatment
facilities in the territory (see Fig. 2a
5
and b) and, moreover, by the
impacts of past and present –both legal and illegal –waste
management activities on agriculture.
Regarding waste production and treatment in Campania two
points are noteworthy. First, the production of waste per capita in the
region is not higher than that of the rest of Italy (Table 1) even
4
Campania is known for its fertility since the Roman Empire, when it was first
called “Campania Felix”(“Happy Campania”).
Fig. 2. (a), 2b: Aerial photo of a waste storage facility in theProvince of Naples, with a red square highlighting a truck to indicate the dimensions of thearea (Giugliano, Taverna del Re).
Personal courtesy of Pacilio Raffaele.
5
The box in Fig. 2a signals a truck, illustrating the scale of the facilities.
Fig. 1. (a), 1b: Campania region and the metropolitan area of Naples.
Source: own elaboration.
241G. D'Alisa et al. / Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 239–249

though the province has the highest waste production per hectare in
Italy (D´Alisa, 2010). With almost 10% of the total national population,
the region has less per capita production of urban and industrial waste,
producing under 9% of total national urban waste and 4% of total
national hazardous waste (APAT, 2008).
The second point is that while Naples is not performing
particularly well in terms of waste collection and recycling, it's
performance is no worse than that of many other big Italian cities.
Sorted waste collection for recycling is gradually increasing across
Italy (APAT, 2008) as well as in Campania. Naples and other cities such
as the capital Rome or Bari lag behind leaders such as Milan and Turin
(Table 2). In 2007 the percentage of sorted collection in Campania was
13.5%, while the national average is 27.5% (Ispra, 2008). Nonetheless,
within Campania there are some municipalities, which are part of the
national initiative of “The Club of Virtuous Municipalities”(http://
www.comieco.org), whose 35 members have committed to and
successfully achieved a waste separation rate of over 35%.
There are around 2500 contaminated sites throughout the region,
mainly concentrated in the metropolitan area of Naples. Fig. 3
illustrates Campania's polluted sites and waste treatment facilities.
However, in 2005, the per capita production of industrial hazardous
waste in Campania (0.75 tons per person per year) was less than half
the national average (1.82 tons per person per year) (APAT, 2008).
Some authors attribute the contamination to the illegal trade and
disposal of waste by the camorra (Naples's mafia), which has dumped
toxic waste on Campania' s lands with the complicity of industrial
companies since the 1990s (Iacuelli, 2007). This complicity has been
key to the growth and success of the illegal waste trade between the
mafia and corporations, an important part of the “ecomafia
6
”business
(Fontana et al., 2008).
3.2. The conflict
Not in my back yard!
The problem is that we have no more yards.
That is what unites us
(Latteri and Santoro, 2008, Activists in Chiaiano).
3.2.1. Declaration of emergency
In 1994 the Italian Prime Minister declared a regional waste
emergency and delegated full power for waste management in
Campania to a special authority: Committee for the Waste Emergency
in Campania (Commissariato di Governo per l'emergenza rifiuti in
Campania, hereafter the Commissioner). The reason was that
Campania 's Regional Government did not develop and implement a
regional waste management plan as required by Regional Law 10/
1993 and the disposal capacity of the region was decreasing
drastically.
By that time, the Region had many illegal landfills and some legal
landfills that were receiving illegally hazardous waste from all over
Italy. Trade in illegal waste, between illegal associations such as the
camorra and other legal entities, including industries and transpor-
tation companies, was thriving in Italy (Scalia, 2000).
Legambiente, a very well known Italian environmental NGO active
since 1989 in denouncing illegal hazardous waste disposal in Campania
(Tortora, 1989)carriedoutthefirst study on this issue in collaboration
with the Army of Carabinieri
7
and the Eurispes research centre (Iacuelli,
2007). Shortly after the results were made public, Nunzio Perella, the
brother of the camorra boss Mario Perella, was arrested. In 1992
Perella, who began collaborating with authorities, famously stated:
“a` munnezza è oro”(‘the rubbish is gold”). Public prosecutors initiated
the “King Midas”operation against camorra bosses for the illegal and
waste business (Armiero, 2008). However, illegal trade by the ecomafia
continued to expand (Fontana et al., 2008; Scalia, 2000).
The Prefect of Naples was appointed as the first Waste Commis-
sioner (Decree no 35, February 11, 1994), charged with the task of
managing daily waste collection and disposal (Table 3). Meanwhile
the Regional Council was rendered responsible for developing the
waste management plan.
Two years of inactivity and delay in the preparation of the plan led
the Prime Minister to nominate a new Commissioner on March 18,
1996, this time the President of the Regional Council. He was granted
authority to produce a waste management plan without the Regional
Council's approval and in July 1997 a regional waste plan was finally
approved (Official Journal Campania Region, July 1997). At that time,
landfill saturation was forecast for 1999 and all scenarios pointed to a
crisis, predictions which were fulfilled later.
3.2.2. The tender
In 1998, a tender was launched for building and managing waste
treatment plants in Campania (Rabitti, 2008). This included two
incinerators and sevenplants for transformingwaste into refuse derived
fuel, i.e. combustible waste blocks known popularly as “ecoballe”in
Italy. The criteria for the tender were cost, speed of installation and
implementation, technical proficiency of the corporation, and technical
value of the installation. There were varying weights attached to each
criteria
8
, the heaviest being cost/price and speed of completion. FIBE, a
consortium of Italian and German enterprises (Italy's Impregilo and
Fisia, Germany's Babcock Anlagen, Babcock Kommunal, and Evo
Oberrhausen) won the tender on December 23, 1998. Had the tender
assigned equal weight to all criteria (see the Best available technology
scenario in Table 4) the result would have been very different, and the
bid of Forster Wheeler would have won instead of FIBE. In effect, the
weighting scheme applied was biased in favour of the adoption of
the "Worst Available Technology", since even if FIBE had scored 0 in
technical proficiency and value, it still would have won (option 0 in
Table 4).
Table 2
Rates of sorted waste collection in main Italian cities.
Cities Daily production of
waste per capita (2005)
% Waste separation
(2001)
% Waste separation
(2005)
Naples 1.43 4.89 7.71
Rome 1.82 3.83 11.79
Milan 1.35 37.87 43.35
Turin 1.43 20.46 36.36
Bari 1.34 5.97 10.31
Source: APAT, 2008.
6
This is the name used in Italy to label the illegal organizations doing business in
the sectors of waste, the cement cycle, animal racket and other environmental
resouce-related activities.
7
The national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both the military and civilia n
populations.
8
The formula for the aggregation of weighting used: Ev=(A⁎Pa) + (B ⁎Pb)+ pc + pd
(Table 4). Personal communication, P. Rabitti).
Table 1
Per capita production of urban waste (kg/per capita).
Year Campania Italy
2001 485 516
2002 465 521
2003 468 524
2004 481 533
2005 485 539
2006 497 550
2007 491 546
Source: APAT, 2008.
242 G. D'Alisa et al. / Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 239–249

The weighting in favour of price and speed was so high that it
violated the spirit of the EU Best Available Technologies (BAT)
Directive (96/61/CE, decree 372/1999 in Italy), in a sense leading to
the adoption of the Worst Available Technology (WAT).
Furthermore, while the tender was still open, the General
Manager of the Association of Italian Banks (ABI) proposed to the
Commissioner: (a) the inclusion of a “deliver or pay”clause to
force municipalities to guarantee a minimum amount of waste for
incineration and (b) that the waste blocks collected while the
incinerators were under construction, would be stored in their
vicinity, rather than sent to other existing plants outside Campania
as was required by law (Ordinance No 2774). Following this
suggestion the storage of ecoballe began (see Fig. 2aandb).
The “deliver or pay”clause created a disincentive for municipal-
ities to recycle. Incineration is considered a renewable source of
energy under Italian National Law, unlike EU practices. Operators
Fig. 3. Campania contaminated sites and some waste storages and treatment facilities.
Source: Adapted from Campania Region, 2005a.
Table 3
Commissioners of the Committee for the Waste Emergency in Campania during the fifteen years of the waste crisis, Presiden ts of Campania Region a nd Prime
Ministers of Italy and their coalition membership during the Commissioner's tenure (when more than one, this means a change of Regional or National Government).
Source: own elaboration.
Starting date of the Commissioner's tenure Commissioner President of Campania Region National Prime Minister
11 February 1994 U. Improta G. Grasso (Centre) C. A. Ciampi (Centre–Left)
A. Rastrelli (Right) S. Berlusconi (Centre–right)
L. Dini (Technical govern)
18 March 1996 A. Rastrelli A. Rastrelli (Right) L. Dini (Technical govern)
R. Prodi (Centre–Left)
18 January 1999 A. Losco A. Losco (Centre) M. D'Alema (Centre–Left)
G. Amato (Centre–Left)
10 May 2000 A. Bassolino A. Bassolino (Centre–Left) G. Amato (Centre–Left)
S. Berlusconi (Centre–right)
27 February 2004 C. Catenacci A. Bassolino (Centre–Left) S. Berlusconi (Centre–right)
R. Prodi (Centre–Left)
10 October 2006 G. Bertolaso A. Bassolino (Centre–Left) R. Prodi (Centre–Left)
6 July 2007 A. Pansa A. Bassolino (Centre–Left) R. Prodi (Centre–Left)
1 January 2008 U. Cimmino A. Bassolino (Centre–Left) R. Prodi (Centre–Left)
11 January 2008 G. De Gennaro & G. Sottile A. Bassolino (Centre–Left) R. Prodi (Centre–Left)
21 May 2008 G Bertolaso A. Bassolino (Centre–Left) S. Berlusconi (Centre–right)
243G. D'Alisa et al. / Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 239–249

were therefore guaranteed a constant stream of revenue as the
government subsidized energy production from waste incineration
(70€per MW of energy produced in 2009). Hence, the biggest
planned incinerator, in Acerra (a municipality in the north of Naples)
with a foreseen 107 MW capacity would generate a revenue about
100 M€per year (D'Alisa, 2010).
This lobbying by the ABI was known only to FIBE, who had tied their
proposal to the assumed inclusion of the deliver or pay clause and the
possibility to accumulate, and not lose, the highly-valued ecoballe for
the future incinerators (Rabitti, 2008). Based on this “hidden criteria”
unknown to other competiting bidders, FIBE was able to reduce
operational costs inits proposal. All this reflects thelack of transparency,
legitimacy and democracy of the entire process. In effect, the tender
process assigned a low value to technology, and by extension to
environmental and health protection. Second, the existence of hidden
criteria and information obscured the tender process (Rabitti, 2008).
Third, after winning, FIBE was granted the power to decide the location
of facilities without any local consultation or environmental impact
assessment (EIA) as required by law. The company's only obligation was
to obtain a vaguely defined Declaration of Environmental Compatibility
from the Ministry of Environment, which did not stipulate any local
participation (Rabitti, 2008).
3.2.3. The emergency of the emergency
In December 1999 all regional landfills reached their full capacity.
With no new treatment plants built and no recycling measures put in
place, the Commissioner implemented emergency measures to
expand existing landfills until new facilities could be built, transform-
ing Campania 's landscape. By 2001, the first plant producing waste
blocks (ecoballe) was finished, but unable to handle the daily amount
of waste. Ecoballe had to be stored in the surroundings of the plant,
blocking the arrival of new waste.
Between 2004 and 2007, public prosecutors intervened on several
occasions to stop the activity of the plants, as their products did not
conform to legal standards for the composition of combustible waste
9
.
Plants were ordered to close. Waste began to accumulate again in the
streets, creating discomfort and health hazards for city residents. The
situation forced the government to admit what local activists had
been saying for months: that the ecoballe was not suitable for
incineration because it did not meet the minimum calorific power of
15,000 kJ/kg (Rabitti, 2008). In order to circumvent the legal ruling
that would result in plant closure, waste was reclassified into either
“dried”,or“wet”fraction, with the latter assigned to landfill. Despite
the fact that the former could not be burnt under EU directives, the
Italian Prime Minister approved its incineration in the Acerra plant
with a special ordinance (Ordinance No 3567/2008).
By 2002 the hazardous situation of several landfills led to legal
action by municipalities and citizens. Two landfills, one in Tufino,
Naples, and another in Motecorvino Pugliano, Salerno (Fig. 3) were
closed due to heavy and persistent pollution of groundwater. This
measure led the region into a severe waste crisis, labelled “the
emergency of the emergency”by authorities. The Commissioner
requested help from nearby regions to dispose of Campania's waste,
while ecoballe storage commenced in Taverna del Re, Naples. Some
years later, this would become a conflictive site of tragic events.
The situation worsened during this period as the camorra
diversified their illegal waste disposal strategy: 1) transporting and
dumping hazardous waste in the countryside by truck; 2) dumping
waste in illegal caves or holes; 3) mixing toxic waste with textiles to
avoid explosions and then burning it; and 4) mixing toxic with urban
waste for disposal in landfills and incinerators (Iacuelli, 2007).
3.2.4. Local opposition
In 2002, FIBE received approval from the Commissioner for the
construction of two incinerators. One in Acerra, in the province of
Naples, and another 15 km away in Santa María la Fossa, in the
province of Caserta. Local communities on hearing these plans began
to mobilize. In Acerra, protesters had four grievances the first was
based on the absence of local consultation; the second on the use of
outdated incineration technology; the third related to the environ-
mental and health impacts of incineration; and the final complaint
focused on historical injustices regarding the lack of action towards
industrial pollution (petrol-chemical facility) and illegal urban and
toxic waste dumps concentrated in the area.
In September 2003, citizens from Acerra together with members of
local movements of the unemployed and Social Centre collectives
(young activists transforming abandoned buildings into political,
cultural, and recreational centres), began guarding the site of the
planned incinerator. In August 17, 2003, the first clash with the police
drove the activists out of the area, but twelve days later, a public protest
was organised in Acerra, considered to this day the most important
demonstration against incineration in Campania. Residents, local
authorities, social movements, organizations of unemployed and
members of the local Communist Party demanded the dismissal of the
project and the remediation of contaminated land. The demonstration
was ended by violent police repression: teargas was thrown at
protesters, and many people were injured and hospitalised. As a result
of this violent oppression the number of people participating in protests
diminished, though other mobilisation strategies started taking shape.
Local committees (neighbours working in assemblies) began to
spearhead information campaigns on the environmental and health
impacts of incineration (e.g. dioxins and furans), the state of land
pollution and the need for land remediation.
3.2.5. The “Triangle of Death”
On September 5th, 2004, an article entitled “The Triangle of Death”
was published in The Lancet Oncology (Senior and Mazza, 2004). This
paper showed a correlation between increasing cancer rates and the
presence of landfill sites (both legal and illegal), and other polluted
spots in the Campania region, labelling this area “the Triangle of
Death”(Fig. 4). However, shortly after, a study carried out by the
9
As mistrust grew, people began referring to the “ecoballe”as an “eco-lie”(“balla”
in Italian means “block, ball”but also means “lie”).
Table 4
Criteria and weighting for waste management.
Source: own elaboration based on P. Rabitti data. Ev = (A*Pa) + (B*Pb) + pc + pd. Ev stands for Evaluation; A represents the criteria: Price, A= (1 −Pi/Pmax); Pa is the weight of
Price; B represents the criteria: Speed, B =(1 −Si/Smax); Pb is the weight of speed; Pc is the value of technical proficiency on a maximum of 10 in the WAT scenario and 25 in the BAT
scenario; Pd is the value of technical value on a maximum of 10 in the WAT scenario and 25 in BAT scenario.
Worst available technology Competing tenders Option 0 Best available technology Alternatives
Criteria Official weights FIBE Forster wheeler FIBE Equal weights FIBE Forster wheeler
Price (lire/kg) Pa=45 83 110 83 Pa=25 83 110
Speed (gg) Pb =35 300 395 300 Pb = 25 300 395
Technical proficiency Pc = 10 7,4 8,6 0Pc = 25 7,4 8,6
Technical value Pd=10 4,2 8,6 0Pd= 25 4,2 8,6
Total 31,63 17,2 19,4 41 43
244 G. D'Alisa et al. / Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 239–249

Commissary for the Waste Emergency concluded: “there is no
foundation in the data for the so-called “bad-health waste epidemic”,
none of the described elements sustain an association between waste
and diseases”(Commissariato di Governo, 2008, pp.123). In 2008, the
Department of Civil Protection ordered a study, coordinated by the
World Health Organization, to further examine the health impacts of
waste in Campania. It concluded that there was a statistical
correlation between cancer mortality and congenital anomalies in
areas where legal and illegal landfills of urban and toxic waste were
present (Fazzo et al., 2008; Martuzzi et al., 2008).
Although the Commissioner dismissed the health impacts of waste
management, the local population largely acknowledged the multi-
plying cases of human and livestock health problems all over the
region and continued to argue for land remediation (as depicted in the
documentary “Biutiful Cauntri”, 2007
10
). Since 2000, hundreds of
sheep in Acerra had been losing wool and dying. In 2005, a striking
documentary was screened on national television (“Waste of Italy”,
RAI3 12 July, 2005) denouncing the serious problem of Campania and
associating the environmental crisis with the mismanagement of the
Commissioner and the entrance in the business of the camorra.
11
The
struggle for environmental health became a personal matter as people
discovered the connection between their illnesses and the conditions
of their working and living environments (Armiero, 2008). However
citizens' accounts, priorities and needs were ignored and the gap
between expert and lay knowledge grew, as the government under-
played public concerns and insisted on the need for even more robust
scientific knowledge.
The conditions of Campania's waste conflict could well have led to
the adoption of a post-normal science framework, (uncertain facts,
disputed values, high stakes and urgent decisions) as has been the
case in other communities around the world where popular
epidemiology has emerged in response to situations similar to the
Triangle of Death (Brown, 1997). This was not the case in Campania
however. Instead, the Assise
12
opened a citizen–scientist debate on
morbidity and mortality, but with a philosophy far from that of post-
normal science or popular epidemiology. Instead of seeing a role for
laypersons in collecting and analyzing information, marshalling and
directing the resources of experts in order to understand the
epidemiology of a disease (Brown, 1997), Assise still sees intellectuals
and experts as unique leaders and guides of the lay population.
3.2.6. Local activism and social networks
Over the following years, diverse networks and alliances among
local, national and international (zero-waste platform) activists
formed. Popular Committees of neighbours, environmentalist groups
and members of collectives of Social Centres engaged in sit-ins and
numerous public assemblies, generating and disseminating informa-
tion about the environmental problems caused by the waste
treatment facilities.
In 2005 the “Rete Campania Ambiente e Salute”(Campania
Network for Environment and Health) was founded. This coalition
brought together organizations, communities and movements
grounded in an anti-capitalist narrative. In this period, the “Comitato
Allarme Rifiuti Tossici”(Alarm for Toxic Waste Committee) was also
born. This was a network of civil society, non-government, cultural
and religious organisations, and intellectuals concerned with the
illegal disposal of hazardous waste in the region and its health
consequences. Their strategies were mainly legal, denouncing the
abuse of government power, making pleas to the European Commis-
sion, and drawing attention to Italian government measures that
would legalize illegal and/or unconstitutional practices.
The different narratives and strategies applied by these social
movements make clear the complexity of the conflict, highlighting the
multidimensionality of claims, such as those demanding a clean
environment, healthy livelihoods, preservation of natural landscapes,
respect for legal procedures, justice and participative policies.
3.2.7. The landfill struggles
By 2005, with growing international and national pressure, the
government's main objective became “to clean all streets of waste”.
Law, order, and the national and international image of Naples were
given paramount importance by decision makers. The pressure on the
Commissioner to build new landfills increased along with conflicts at
the proposed sites, such as in Montesarchio, in Benevento Province,
which ironically has one of the lowest per capita rates of waste
production in Italy (APAT, 2008). Protesters there claimed that the site
chosen for landfill was inappropriate due to its location between two
Regional parks. However, the Commissioner only acquiesced to
reduce the planned capacity by 40%.
Also, in Montecorvino Rovella, Salerno, residents protested the
opening of a new landfill. In the same year another significant struggle
took place in the city of Campagna, Salerno where the community
fought against the opening of a landfill.
13
Here a 35 year old protester
died tragically of heart attack from exposure to cold during the second
night of protest (La Repubblica, February 24, 2005).
3.2.8. The consistency and legitimacy of the tender
With no incinerators or effective recycling in place, the amount of
ecoballe to be stored grew daily, giving shape to a new camorra-led
business: the buying and renting of land to FIBE for the storage of
ecoballe. The resulting financial strains were crippling to FIBE, adding
to its inability to fulfil its contractual commitments, and putting into
question the legitimacy and consistency of its entire waste manage-
ment procedure. FIBE had declared in its proposal for example that it
would complete installation in 300 days, offering its services at the
price of 83 lire/kg (41.50 €/t). At the time of writing of this article, the
incinerators were still incomplete and FIBE's operating costs were
about 88.44€/t without accounting for asset depreciation and
corporate profit(Rabitti, 2008).
10
This documentary appeared in 2007, directed by Calbria E., D'amboriso A. E
Ruggiero. It gave voices to the sheep farmers around the area of Acerra.
11
The documentary showed shocking images of a misshapen lamb with its eyes
below its chin and one sheep breeder's figure indicated deaths of over a thousand
animals in three years. Some months later, he was also dying of cancer.
12
The “Assise Della Città di Napoli e del Mezzogiorno d'Italia”is a free academia
founded by a citizen assembly. For more on the Manifesto of the Assise look: http://
www.napoliassise.it/.
13
A local comity blocked transport infrastructures for a week, closing all the routes
to the south of Italy.
Fig. 4. The triangle of death. Source: Senior and Mazza, 2004.
245G. D'Alisa et al. / Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 239–249

In light of the gravity of the situation and the procedures against
FIBE initiated by the Prosecutor of Naples, the Italian government
decided to rescind its contract with the company on November 30,
2005. A new tender for waste management was issued, but no cor-
porate bids were submitted. Without the subsidies to burnthe ecoballe
nobody was interested in the messy waste business. So with Ordinance
no 3657/2008 the Italian Government guaranteed large subsidies (as
highlighted in “The tender”subsection 3.2.2 above), to be financed by a
7% increase in electricity bills, even though the European Commission
had declared this incentive incompatiblewith the European directive on
electricity from renewable energy resources (2001/77/CE). In fact, the
amount of accumulated combustible waste across Campania is today
estimated at 7 million tons, equivalent to one billion Euros to be
potentially generated from combustion (D´Alisa, 2010).
In October 2008, the government, without issuing a tender,
appointed a company called A2A to manage waste in Campania.
However, FIBE continues to hold the rights to finish the incinerator at
Acerra, even though the company is undergoing legal action and a
possible precautionary impounding of assets valued at 750 million €
(Rabitti, 2008). This lack of transparency and consistency in the
tendering process damaged trust between local inhabitants and the
government, fostering further unrest.
3.2.9. Barricades against “new”landfills
In 2007 as pressure for new landfills increased, new conflicts
emerged. On May 19, the Campania Network for Environment and
Health in collaboration with Alarm for Toxic Waste organized a
national demonstration showing new bonds of cooperation. The crisis
was no longer perceived as a local problem, but of one with a visible
and common “connecting structure”. More and more people were
actively opposing the top-down response to the crisis.
Meanwhile, in Giuliano, Taverna del Re (Fig. 2a and b) the local
Committee was opposing the disposal of more waste. In a five
kilometer radius there was already one illegal landfill and four old
landfills, all undergoing investigation for the presence of illegal toxic
waste disposed of by the camorra (Musella, 2008). For two months
there were daily clashes with police and the facility closed and
reopened several times. A shocking episode took place in March 2008
when a protestor set fire to herself, risking her life.
Throughout 2007, tons of ecoballe were shipped by train to Germany.
Despite this partial solution, new sites were needed for its storage. The
Commissioner proposed the use of an old abandoned tobacco manufac-
turing plant and the re-opening of the Pianura landfill in the Pisani
district, both of which were located in the Municipality of Naples and
were contaminated sites requiring land remediation. For the last 35 years,
Pianura had been the only official landfill of Naples, with much hazardous
waste dumped there and residents still awaiting land remediation. When
the Commissioner ordered the re-opening of Pianura, he faced a massive
public outcry. Fires were lit across the Province and Molotov bombs
hurled at police and political party offices. Buses were hijacked and used
to build barricades hundreds of metres long to stop the army and the
trucks bringing waste. It was a genuine guerrilla affront by autonomous
people against the government that not even the appointment of the
former Police chief as new Commissioner could calm. Pianura became a
no-go zone, and after weeks of confrontation the government decided to
look for another place to store the ecoballe. With the situation growing
urgent, Chiaiano became the new option. Local Committees in defence of
this quarry and the metropolitan parks of Naples rapidly emerged, but
their efforts to block the access of technicians, sent by the government to
analyse the eligibility of the site, failed.
Meanwhile, coordination among local committees, civil and
religious associations, groups of intellectuals, and NGOs took on a
more formal structure with an official delegation and a scientific
committee (The Regional Waste Coordination Committee of Campa-
nia). The Campania Network for Environment and Health decided not
to remain affiliated with this committee because it didn't agree with
the formal organization of the movement. Nonetheless, the two
networks continued to maintain the same zero-waste platform.
3.2.10. Government response: the new decree
In response to the unrest the Government approved a new decree
(no 90 on May 2008 which was converted into law 123/2008). This:
(i) delegated resolution of waste problems to an Undersecretary of the
State under the Presidency of the Cabinet; (ii) labelled the location of
all waste management facilities sites of “strategic State interest”so
that any citizen obstructing State activity risked imprisonment;
(iii) rendered environmental impact assessments non-obligatory;
(iv) allowed FIBE to continue managing waste in Campania, despite
ongoing investigations into its activities; (v) opened ten landfills,
which were already existing dumpsites of all sorts of waste; and
(vi) authorized construction of four incinerators and ten landfills.
This decree illustrates the intensification of authoritarian trends in
Italy. Over the past 15 years, decisions affecting the future of 6 million
people in Campania have been taken without any consideration of
their concerns, values or proposals. No genuine participation has
been organised in the decision-making processes, nor has the fragile
equilibrium of the territory or its inhabitants, livelihoods been
contemplated. Meanwhile, the peoples' right to peaceful protest has
been completely stifled under threat of imprisonment.
It is difficult to predict what will happen in the near future.
Currently many authorities of the Commissarial organization are
under investigation. Local Committees are reorganizing, implement-
ing autonomous recycling schemes and waiting for the Government's
next steps. There is a growing awareness amongst citizens' move-
ments that they are now facing a much more hardened state reaction.
4. Discussion
On July 17, 2008, the Italian Prime Minister declared the “end of the
emergency”due to the absence of waste in the streets. This statement
can be seen as an accurate reflection of the National and Regional
governments' perception of the problem as one of inefficient waste
management, the inability of Campania's residents to implement
separation of household waste for recycling, and the tainted interna-
tional reputation of Campania and Italy.This representationof the waste
problem neglects the ecological, economical, political, social and health
complexities of the problemthat have thus far been underlined by those
social movements borne of their impacts (Table 5).
In this lightthis paper argues that Campania's waste problem cannot
be analysedas one of simple waste mismanagement for several reasons:
1) Waste generation figures alone do not explain the problem. The
rapid saturation of landfills should also be seen as resulting from
the import of external urban and toxic waste by the camorra over
the last twenty years.
14
2) The procedure for contracting the waste management system was
not very legitimate and inconsistent, fuelling mistrust in the
government.
3) The decision to locate the main waste treatment facilities in the area
known as the “Triangle of Death has no congruence with any notion
of sustainability or precautionary principle. These choices put at risk
the agriculture and public health and under-valued the importance
of the agro-food chain for the regional economy. Moreover, evidence
about the increased morbidity and mortality of humans and
livestock in the area support the citizens' rights to claim for land
remediation and the implementation of healthy solutions.
4) The policy of the Italian government to subsidize incineration is
perverse and against EC practices. On the disposal side landfill
14
Even if the authors acknowledge the relevance of the mafia in Campania´s conflict,
the complexity and magnitude of the subject deserve a specific study beyond the reach
of this paper.
246 G. D'Alisa et al. / Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 239–249

planning has been environmentally and socially unsound. This is
evident in view of past management failures such as in Lo
Uttaro, Pianura and Montesarchio, but also for the last decisions
to site landfills where: tons of asbestos have been recovered and
persistent hydrological problems are present (Chiaiano); in
areas where the risk of landsides is high (Sant'Arcangelo
Trimonte); or even in National Parks (Terzigno). Governments'
decisions have on the whole favoured the interests of corpora-
tions over the interests of natural resources, livelihoods and the
safety of citizens.
5) State inability to control illegal, toxic dumping and illicit trade
with companies from northern Italy and Europe in the camorra-
controlled area has made efforts to find a workable solution to the
waste problem futile. Government inaction and inefficiency and
the flourishing business of the Camorra created a positive feedback
loop. Indeed, Government failure to handle the waste problem led
to the expansion of opportunities for illegal activities, which
further impeded the ability of the Government to solve the waste
problem, which in turn enabled greater profit generation by the
camorra and associated enterprises.
5. Conclusions
TheproblemofwastedisposalinCampaniaisnotjustaproblem
of technical, economic and logistic mismanagement, reducible to
the inability of Campania's citizens to deal with their own waste.
Nor is it one of Italy's tarnished international reputation. Policies
based on these assumptions will continue to fail even if anchored by
repressive measures designed to stifle civil unrest. This conflict
risks remaining unsolved if policy-makers continue to deny that
behind these conflicts lies a discrepancy of values generating
different policy choices (Martinez-Alier et al., 1998, Martinez-Alier,
2001).
Over the years, the National Government and Commissioners
have taken an authoritarian stance, imposing solutions that have
put the lives and livelihoods of local communities at risk: this
behaviour still continues even if the emergency has been declared
resolved. Deliberate exclusion of communities from decision-
making processes has evolved into a violation of human and
constitutional rights, including rights to a clean environment,
good health, dignified livelihoods and free expression. Abuses of
power through the continued violation of European, Italian and
Regional laws, have increased mistrust towards government at all
levels. The development and implementation of waste policies in
Campania have been characterised by an overwhelming absence of
participation.
The waste conflicts of Campania are not simply NIMBY conflicts.
International agreements including the Aarhus and Basel Conventions
continue to be openly flouted in violation of the peoples' right to
maintain their traditions and landscape, and to engage in decision-
making processes aimed at ending the trade of illegal hazardous
waste, reducing waste production, and promote zero-waste policies.
Activists are not asking for financial compensation within an
economic valuation framework. They are arguing in terms of
landscape, health, ecology and democracy. In this sense, the
escalation of the conflict is linked to new voices expressing different
values from those of decision makers, voices which have found
themselves unacknowledged in decision-making processes so far.
Campania's social unrest can easily be understood as a manifestation
of an environmental justice movement. Actors are concerned not
only with waste management efficiency, but also with the increasing
amount of waste in Campania coming from elsewhere, the presence
of illegal toxic dumps, abuses of political power, anomalous
increases in disease rates, dangers posed to future agricultural
production, and the right to be heard.
Moreover, cost-shifting from industrial to rural areas is a structural
feature of modern societies. Illegal businesses were allowed to flourish
from toxic dumping with little interference from the national
Government. Locals perceive this as an additional sign of injustice: the
Government was soft on the camorra and organized crime, but is now
being toughon citizens, sendingthe army to deal with unarmedcivilians
that are fighting only topreserve their health andthe future of their land
and children.
To guarantee the quality of a process for a long term solution to
the crisis in Campania it is not possible merely to refer to accredited
experts discovering “true”facts upon which to base good policies to
be imposed by the power of the Army. In such a post-normal context
where facts are uncertain, stakes high and decisions urgent, the
legitimacy of different perspectives and the value commitments of
all actors should be accounted for. The authors propose that reliance
must be passed from a community of experts to an expert com-
munity, where accredited scientists or experts continue to play a key
role in quality control but where lay persons (the so-called extended
peer community) also assess the quality of scientificresultsinreal-
life situations. This would give life to an “expert community”
necessary to create wise and shared solutions. For this reason it is
crucial for the science of governance to integrate the extended facts
and knowledge that laypersons bring with them (Funtowicz and
Ravetz, 2002).
Table 5
Actors and interests.
Dimension Actors
Government Social movement and local committees Industrial organizations Criminal organizations
Political National Government's wish to maintain
its political stronghold in the region
Increased transparency in decision-making
by local, regional and national authorities
To continue “business
as usual”
To continue “business
as usual”
Appearance of political unity
Economic Efficient waste disposal Protection of agricultural livelihoods Maximizing Profit Maximizing profit
Governmental 's subsidies
for incineration
Renting land to store
the ecoballe
Negative effects on trade and tourism
in the region
Subcontracting Transport
operation
Transport operation
Social International reputation Participatory processes To control over the territory
Public order To guarantee some job
to their people
Environmental “Clean streets”Safeguarding of public health including quality
of food protection and remediation of land
Looking for best practices of disposal methods
and facilities
No incineration No mega-landfill
Source: own elaboration.
247G. D'Alisa et al. / Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 239–249

Repressive laws have failed to address the multiple facets of the
conflict, oversimplifying the complexity of the crisis and denying
the will of a large number of citizens. Indeed, during the revision
of the paper, a sentence issued by the European Court of Justice
condemned the Italian Government for its approach to the
resolution of Campania waste mismanagement, ratifying some of
the local concerns.
15
Theeffectiveresolutionofthisconflict requires instead an
approach that takes into account a much wider consideration of
values and beliefs at stake. This cannot be accomplished through
authoritarian processes but more inclusive ones, whereby different
actors at different scales assume responsibilities through a
deliberative perspective. This consideration is essential if preven-
tive approaches are to be developed and applied to waste issues,
instead of perpetuating the use of current end-of-pipe solutions
whereby problems are dealt with reactively.
Finally, the waste conflict in Campania also allows more general
conclusions to be drawn regarding the assessment of environmen-
tal conflicts which are to come in Italy and elsewhere. Current
trends show that waste generation and proper waste disposal are in
general, problems of economic growth. If current trends do not
change, the proliferation of similar crises is likely to occur in
developed countries, as it is already on a daily basis in the majority
of developing countries. Discussions about environmental conflicts
therefore, should focus on the engagement of extended peer
communities, and on the need to reduce economic flows and their
consequent waste by-products.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to J. Martinez Alier, M. Giampietro, A. Armiero and A.
Genovese for their fruitful comments. We would also like to extend
our particular thanks to R. Pacilio for Fig. 2a–b to R. Carro for the maps
of Campania and to P. Rabitti for the information provided about the
criteria and their weighting for evaluating waste management
contract bids. Finally, this work could not have been finished without
G. Kallis and the editorial work of A. Cardenas. We thank the two
anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. This work is
dedicated to the community of activists of Campania.
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