DEADLY WASTE

I am a great aficionado of the detective novels of Donna Leon. They are set in Venice, revolve around the Commissario Brunetti and the last one I read was ‘About Face’.


I will quote from the sleeve notes: “Brunetti is visited by Carabinieri Maggior Filippo Guarino from the nearby city of Marghera. As part of a wider investigation into Mafia takeovers of businesses in the region, Guarino wants information about the owner of a trucking company who was found murdered in his office. He believes the man’s death is connected to the illegal transportation of refuse – and more sinister material – in his company’s trucks.”

Indeed he is. I won’t give any more of the story away in case you wish to read it but the origin of this waste is Naples.

So this week I was rather taken aback when I read the Andalucía environment ministry has rejected a formal request presented by two Italian companies to transfer 30,000 tonnes of rubbish from the city of - Naples - to the waste dump in Jerez de la Frontera in Cádiz province.

The minister for the environment, José Juan Díaz Trillo, confirmed on February 18 that his department had received the formal request from the two companies. The ministry had been assured the waste contained no dangerous materials.

However the ministry rejected the request and on Saturday Trillo stated: “The Andalucía government from the start has made it clear and has taken a firm position that it would not allow this type of rubbish in the community.”

EU law prohibits the treatment of dangerous waste or that with special characteristics outside of the country of its origin. In this instance the waste is said not to be hazardous but Trillo believes it is for the Italians to handle their own waste and not Jerez or Andalucía.

I am sure the waste is what the Italians say it was – but you can’t help wondering. Perhaps another case for Commissario Brunetti!

(Photo: rubbish on a street in Naples)

TWO OUT OF THREE RECYCLE

When I met my good friend Prospero to chew the cud over breakfast in Jimena’s Vecina Bar last week he mentioned that later in the day he was going with a mutual friend to the local Punto Limpio recycling centre. What exciting lives we two old hacks lead – but the point is the fact that it was part of his day’s agenda didn’t seem in the least out of the ordinary.

The reason I mention this is that two out of every three residents of Andalucía say they recycle their household waste of paper, glass and plastic “as a matter of habit”. Those are the conclusions of the Ecobarómetro de Andalucía 2009 produced by the Institute of Advanced Social Studies for the region’s ministry of the environment.

Of those questioned 65.3per cent said they sorted out their household waste for recycling whilst 27 per cent admitted they didn’t recycle at all.

Women are the most committed recyclers in the household (68.7 per cent) compared with men (62.4 per cent). Those aged between 45 and 59 years are tops in protecting the environment with 73.7 per cent sorting out their household items before disposal.

The better educated members of society seem to be taking the lead with 80.2 per cent with a university degree saying they recycle their waste compared with 56.7 of those with standard schooling.

So what is the profile of the non-recycler? According to the Ecobarometer he is male, under 30 without any further education. This same group says it is not worried about the environment.

Well you know what they say about statistics but what surprises me about these findings is that it seems to be the older generation – like Prospero and my good self, well educated coves that we are – who are in the vanguard here.

If you’d ask me to take a guess I would have said it was the youngsters who are the committed recyclers –but it seems “we” are the trend setters – and it’s many a year since either of us held that title!