Garbage, Garbage Everywhere, well - almost!

The summer of 2008, just before we came here, there was a garbage strike in the Naples area. From what I was told the garbage was piled so high that you could not see at intersections. I remember when we had such a terrible winter in Utah in 1998 that the National Guard had to take the snow and dump it out in the desert because the piles were so high that it was obstructing the intersections and people could not see traffic. From that experience, I'm glad I was not here during the last garbage strike.

Yes I did say LAST because I have been told by the members on base that as of last week Naples and Caserta are to experience another strike. Lucky us!!

We were beginning to see the garbage pile up - just a minute - I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let me explain the garbage set-up here. Garbage is picked up every day. For us Americans where garbage is picked up once a week that seems overkill. At least it did when we first came here. There are several reasons for daily garbage collection here:

• On the most part, living conditions are very small. I am amazed at how little space Italians live in compared with Americans. I never thought I would be able to survive such a small kitchen.
• The Italians have such an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, I will miss that when I return to the states, that they have a large amount of compost garbage. Because of the weather here, the heat and humidity, having this type of garbage build up over a week would be horrible. 
• When I asked an Italian about the daily garbage collection, his first response was that it creates jobs. I found it interesting that their first consideration for garbage pick-ups on a daily basis was for the benefit of work for the people.
• Schedule for garbage pickup:

              Monday, Wednesday, Friday - Compost Gargage

              Tuesday, Saturday - Garbage Garbage

              Thursday - Recycling (plastics, tin cans, paper, cardboard)

              Glass is put into special containers so each person is
                  responsible to find those containers and deposit
                  their glass

Anyway, back to today. As we were driving around this week, we noticed garbage starting to pile up on the roads in front of all houses. It's not unusual to see garbage in areas with no houses, plots here and there and short sections of roads with agricultural fields between the small communities, but to have the garbage neatly bagged and stacked in front of all houses and businesses was a different story.

Yesterday Larry was driving from the church building to our apartment and he was redirected to another street because the police were out in such great numbers (he thought every officer they had was on duty). It appears the garbage was being picked up and the police were closing off streets in a wide area (about a 2 block radius) around the garbage collectors. Almost like we would for a parade. 

Well, at least the garbage in our town is being picked up. I did notice last night that in Porto di Caserta the garbage was not picked up. Time will tell what the future brings for Naples and their every perplexing problem of garbage!!!!