Thus in an open letter on his profile Fb, the Mayor of Rome, Virginia Rages launched an appeal, after the waste emergency that has arisen, following the early closure of the landfill in Colleferro.
If we work together we will do better and protect everyone's interests. I write this open letter because I have to defend my fellow citizens from a wrong narrative that falsely describes the selfish Romans who are ready to flood the municipalities of Lazio with waste. I am writing it because some fellow mayors have signed a letter to say "no" to Rome, turning their faces away in the face of a request for collaboration to quickly prevent the opening of new landfills in the territory of Rome. The Lazio Region through an ordinance intends, in fact, to transform dozens of quarries in our city into real landfills, even exceeding environmental standards. Yet it would be possible to avoid it if the Region itself had not decided to bring forward the closure of a landfill by one year, that of colleferro, still active and able to host the waste of Rome and other Lazio municipalities. An illogical advance especially given that the Regional Waste Plan has been missing for 7 years, for which the European Commission has already declared the region's inaction and seems ready to open an infringement procedure. Rome has asked to avoid the early closure and, having no other outlets, whose indication by law is always up to the Region, temporarily bring more waste to the existing Civitavecchia landfill.
"No, we don't want the waste of the Romans ”thundered the mayors of some municipalities. And it is above all to them that I write. For decades the Romans welcomed the waste from Fiumicino and Ciampino to the Malagrotta landfill. Even today at the Porcarelli plant, in Rocca Cencia, in the east of the city, the waste of over 50 municipalities in Lazio is treated, as the Tmb of Malagrotta also treats the waste of Fiumicino. Every day the Romans host 1 million and a half people and many come from their territories: they consume and throw away in Rome and some, not a few, even carry bags of garbage that do not differ in their municipalities and that they abandon in improvised dumps along the streets of Rome . The Romans are generous: try asking those who have lived near Rocca Cencia or Malagrotta for years, or along the entrance roads to Rome. Attention. There are far too many borders. Let's not create them even between Regions or Municipalities. Italy is generous and the Italians have always been in solidarity. Let us oppose a climate of selfishness and closure. Let us also oppose the logic according to which continuous emergency measures are used to resolve a now structural crisis determined by the correct closure of the Malagrotta landfill according to which sites are constantly being opened in derogation. This logic is of no use to anyone. Rome will not close its borders, it will continue to do its part and after the approval of the regional waste plan, Rome will be able to build the necessary plants without environmental derogations and without derogations from the rules set up to protect the health of its citizens. Let everyone do their part.
The regional councilor for waste, Massimiliano Valeriani, defined Raggi's statement as «serious»: “It is colossal nonsense. The mayor is primarily responsible for the catastrophic management of the waste cycle in the city. The Region was forced to make up for the defaults of the Municipality which should prevent Rome itself from continuing to be an open-air dump with garbage in the streets, near schools, nurseries and hospitals “.
La Raggi, writes the Corriere della Sera, played in advance on today's meeting in the Region at the end of which the technicians (Laura d'Aprile for the Municipality, Flaminia Tosini for the Region and Paola Camusso for the Metropolitan City) will present the list places suitable for receiving Roman waste destined for landfills. In fact, according to the "contingent and urgent" ordinance on Roman waste issued on November 28 by the Region, the terms of technical evaluation expire today and by December XNUMX it will be up to the mayor to choose a landfill, otherwise the commissioner will start.
The waste that must find a delivery site is a thousand tons a day of waste from the Tmb, which will no longer have the Colleferro landfill, "closed early" according to Raggi. "We have already supported and helped her for over a year - the reply from the mayor of Colleferro, Pierluigi Sanna. - The landfill will close on January 15 and there it will find all of us, together with our communities ".
Among the dumps under consideration by the list of technicians, there are the "white areas" and the "disused quarries" inside the Municipality (in the IV, XI, XII and XIII Municipio), in the Metropolitan City (Cerveteri, Fiumicino, Allumiere, Riano is an area on the border between Rome and Zagarolo) and in the Region (Colleferro, Civitavecchia and Rieti). Italy, however, risks the infringement procedure by the EU because the waste must be delivered to the local area where it is produced and for Rome the border is the ring road.