Naples’ eyesore may soon warm Oslo homes, if plans to ship the garbage that’s piled up on the Italian city’s streets to the Norwegian capital are carried out.
Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported over the weekend that officials from the City of Oslo were in Naples last week, to discuss an initiative that could benefit both cities.
Naples has long been plagued by mounds of garbage piling up on the streets, a result of lack of capacity at area dumps and, allegedly, mafia involvement and conflicts. Oslo, meanwhile, has new energy plants that need garbage to burn.
The Oslo heating plants are under capacity, so Naples’ garbage could be viewed as fuel.
Plans call for the garbage to be loaded onto vessels and shipped to Oslo, and environmentalists support the initiative, despite the shipping involved. They note that the garbage left to rot on the streets unleashes dangerous emissions as well as being a health hazard.
Emissions from the actual shipping would be modest in comparison.
“It’s in everyone’s interests that the City of Oslo fills up its garbage-burning facility,” Jannicke Gerner Bjerkås of the city told NRK. “That’s why our delegation was in Naples.” There was no word on when a program may be agreed.
