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Rome and the garbage crisis

Anyone been to Rome recently ? I just heard a news article on NPR stating that the trash had not been picked up in months due to the strike . We are headed there in two weeks ! Yikes !

Posted by
11613 posts

I was in Roma several times this summer, last on August 7, trash is not a problem.

Posted by
11367 posts

It's so clean right now you would not believe it since 40% of the Romans are out of town! But there has NOT been a crisis. Maybe some neighborhood had a problem, but nowhere we've been in the past 4+ years.

Posted by
7737 posts

The fact that NPR reported this story as true has lowered my opinion of their news division. Hard to trust them now.

Posted by
11367 posts

Well this is a pretty small story for the U.S. market, Michael. I suspect someone opposing the new mayor planted the fiction.

Posted by
7048 posts

Michael, I agree. Most 'news' stories today are basically rumors, supposition, and innuendos so it's hard to know if there really is a 'trusted' news source anymore. It seems every news story today has to be double and triple fact checked. But I still think NPR is ahead of most.

Posted by
11367 posts

This evening I had a chat with a friend that lives in another part of Rome, the Esquilino. This is a rioni outside of the center most tourists visit, past Monti to the east. Termini Station is at one end of the Esquilino. Piazza Vittorio is in the Esquilino, a large immigrant community surrounding. Also San Giovanni in Laterano and the Holy Stairs. This is one of the areas with a garbage problem, but away from where the average visitor woudl see the problems, deeper in the residential neighborhoods. Also Tuscolano, further out, has a problem. No doubt other rioni that are not tourist-oriented nor high income have the problem as well. Apparently Rome's street cleaning and garbage collection efforts are focused on the northern part of the city, the higher-income and the tourist areas. So Prati, Parioli, Pinciana, the area around the British and American Embassies, Ponte Milvio, etc., are being kept cleaner.

She did say their street was particulary bad last month.