Italy and the Investigation of waste

The dicenbre 6, 2011 in the harbor of Taranto, the Guardia di
finance, together Fraud Office and the Customs Agency with the cooperation, since the
initial stages of the investigation, the Consortium Polieco, he discovers a transnational organization dedicated
the global trade in waste plastics and old tires. One of the biggest such operations
ever made in Italy, the result of a long investigation that began in 2009: code name, "Golden
Plastic "-" plastic gold "- which ended with 54 arrests and the seizure in advance of
assets of 21 companies with a total value of more than € 6 million. On 4 December, however, the
police of Noe, coordinated by the prosecutor of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (Me) bring to light a
international transport of waste between Sicily and Senegal. At the center of the illegal flows there was a
company engaged in the disposal and recycling of waste, for the investigators, in the scent of the Mafia, recently
impounded by the DDA of Messina as part of the anti-mafia "Gotha".
The list of investigations that have left their mark in 2011 is really significant. In the mid-
February triggers an operation called "Eurot," the DDA in Florence, on a traffic rags
had his headquarters in the textile district of Prato. Here Prato company picked up the pieces
from the regions of northern Italy and sent them to the time of Campania, thanks to
involvement of a Camorra clan of Herculaneum. Going further than a few months, leaps to
headlines the investigation "Scrap Iron", the prosecution of Locri, on a
massive traffic of ferrous involving several companies Calabria, Puglia and Basilicata; and
then the investigation "Freon" of the Prosecutor of Turin on traffic of waste electrical and
Electronic and scrap cars from Liguria and Piedmont that ended in Nigeria; the
"Wonderland," the Prosecutor of Gela: plastic and sludge disposed of industrial processing
illegally in the two slots of Ragusa; the "Spider Web" of the Prosecutor of Naples, 4
investigation which saw the police of Noe Ancona come across a criminal organization with
based in the Marches between 2005 and 2009 would have illegally disposed of in landfills Italian and
European about 100 thousand tons of hazardous waste, including waste from the refinery of Gela; the
"Asbestos gold" of the prosecutor in Trapani, on a traffic offense of deadly material
toxic; "E-waste" the prosecution of Cagliari, on a stream of WEEE collected in Italy and
shipped to China, Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria and the Congo; the "Dirty Energy" of the prosecution of Pavia, on the illegal management of a system of energy production, which would have earned
approximately 30 million euro.
These are just some of the judicial reports that revealed the behind-the-scenes
waste management, the harsh reality of a phenomenon that unfolds seamlessly on
throughout the country, and across the border, undermining the many clichés of a phenomenon that
would affect only the South, or even worse, the usual Campania.
This is shown clearly in these investigations concluded 191 years, which have taken the names
most varied and evocative: Greenland, Murgia Violated, ECONOX, Salmon indigestible, Clean
Sweep, Phantom recycling, Beagle Boys, King Midas, Terra Mia, Mother Earth (Act I and II),
Wandering, Great Wall (Act I and II), Mesopotamia, False Cards, Star Wars, Merchants of
Waste, Poison, Golden Rubbish, Judgement, Steel Magnolias, just to name a few.