ITALY:Commentators have been calling it "another circle in Dante's Hell" while Rome daily La Repubblica has described the region as one that "is sinking in and suffocating in its own excrement".
The region is Campania, the city is Naples and both are struggling with a massive rubbish collection problem that has left approximately 2,000 tons of rubbish piled up in the streets.
Problems with rubbish collection are nothing new in Naples. A special commission for waste disposal was created in 1994 to deal with a problem exacerbated by the fact that the camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia, has major interests in the waste disposal business. This "ecomafia" has forced the closure of several legal waste treatment centres.
Even without the camorra, Naples has problems dealing with the 1,400 tons of waste it generates every day and the 7,200 tons generated by the region. All 16 waste dumps in the greater area are closed because they are considered to be full.
The decision to temporarily reopen two of these sites, at Pianura and Cercola, to deal with the emergency has proved controversial, with local residents staging protests in the last two days outside both dumps to prevent their reopening.
In recent weeks, the problem has flared up again as frustrated Neapolitans have taken to setting fire to many of the rubbish dumps in the streets.
The Naples fire service was called out to deal with 90 fires between midnight on Wednesday and midday yesterday.
Apart from being a fire hazard, the burning rubbish dumps generate toxic smoke, which is a health hazard.
In 2004 the medical journal the Lancet Oncology identified a "triangle of death" east of Naples, where toxic waste has been linked to a higher incidence of cancer.
The issue of rubbish collection in Naples has become so serious that it merited a mention in state president Giorgio Napolitano's end-of-year address to Italians. Mr Napolitano, himself a native of Naples, called the situation "ever more alarming".
With both local and national government seemingly incapable of resolving the rubbish crisis in Naples, a warning came yesterday from Brussels.
Barbara Helfrich, spokeswoman for the EU environmental commissioner Stavros Dimas, said that the "in the light of recent events" the commission might pursue an infraction procedure against Italy, a punitive procedure already instigated last June because of the waste disposal situation.