In 1980, the Camorra Mafia took over the garbage removal in the Italian state of Campania. At the same time, the 'Ndrangheta Mafia moved into the garbage business in Calabria, another southern Italian state. The Mafia is drawn to garbage collection because " It’s easy to infiltrate, it’s a desperate necessity for every citizen, and it’s not terribly hard to do." Organized crime all over the world is in the garbage business.
Campania has been called the "Land of Fires" because there are frequent garbage fires. Desperate landowners are willing to sell off their land cheap to Mafia clans looking for dump sites. It is as if the entire state is seen as a "gigantic carpet" that anything can be swept under. In some places, the land has become so unstable from dumping that houses and other buildings have to be supported by concrete scaffolds. It has been estimated that as much as ten million tons of toxic and nuclear waste have been dumped in Campania. Some of the waste is transported from as far away as Germany.
There is a severe toll on public health from the toxic and nuclear waste. In some area, the rate of cancer is as much as fifty percent higher than the national average. This toll on health has earned Campania another nickname: "The Triangle of Death." Studies have shown that much of the water in Campania is not safe to drink because of the waste running off the land into streams and rivers. It is difficult to understand how someone could do such damage to the land they live in. The lifespan of a Mafia boss is short and often ends in violence. This leads to an attitude of "live for today" without much concern for the future that the mafia is destroying. They have been referred to as the eco-Mafia. The national government has mobilized the army and is using drones to locate dumpsites.
Mafia dumping has spread beyond Italy to Somalia. There have been reports of deals where guns are traded for the opportunity to dump wastes. Hundreds of barrels of waste have shown up on the shore of Somalia including radioactive uranium waste as well as heavy metals and other toxic substances. A hidden network has sprung up around the world to move toxic and nuclear waste from the developed world to the poor and desperate developing world. A lot of attention in the nuclear nations is paid to the safe disposal of nuclear waste. This global dumping conspiracy threatens to make a joke out of such concern.
Illegal toxic waste dumping in Italy:
