Switzerland rightly rebels against Roman rubbish. Save Gualtieri

While waiting for the Santa Palomba waste-to-energy plant to come on stream, the capital’s waste will have to travel by train to Amsterdam. In the Confederation there are those who protest because this penalizes passenger traffic. The Capitol must parry attacks from the right and left

Who of Nimby wounds, of Nimby perishes, above all when to solve problems he is forced to look for a solution, even if temporary, in somebody else’s backyard. The mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, knows this well, as he has to deal with the dramatic waste situation every day. While waiting for the Santa Palomba waste-to-energy plant to come into operation (expected date: 2026), the capital’s rubbish will have to travel a good thousand six hundred kilometers by train to the Dutch plant where it will be disposed of. Only that even this road is not without obstacles. In Switzerland, where the convoy with Roman waste will have to pass, discontent is mounting. Socialist National Councilor Bruno Storni created a widespread sentiment: “The transport of waste by train via the Alptransit, which is subsidized by the Swiss transfer law, is madness. In doing so, there is a risk of penalizing passenger traffic, especially in the new Ceneri tunnel which is at the limits of its operational capacity. But there’s more: in the eyes of Swiss taxpayers, an investment of this magnitude was not made to move garbage between one country and another. And above all, they have no intention of contributing to the disposal of Roman rubbish”.