ROME — Doctors in Rome are warning of possible health hazards caused by overflowing trash bins in the city’s streets, as the Italian capital struggles with a renewed garbage emergency aggravated by the summer heat.
Trash disposal is a decades-long problem for the Eternal City. Rome was left with no major site to treat the 1.7 million metric tons of trash it produces every year since the Malagrotta landfill was closed in 2013.
Successive mayors from different parties have all proved incapable of solving the city’s garbage woes, which have re-emerged dramatically since Mayor Virginia Raggi of the populist 5-Star Movement took the helm three years ago.
Raggi’s administration is facing frustration and anger from both tourists and Romans over the piles of trash that threaten peoples’ health and tarnish the city’s image.
Giada Zampano, The Associated Press
