– Eldorado (2003): Illegal trafficking of hazardous waste, shipped to Lombardy from the South to be ‘mixed’ with masses of garbage from the streets of Milan and other materials, so as to then pass as non-hazardous waste and be dumped in a landfill in Puglia.

– Dirty Pack (2007): An investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office in Naples that brought to light illicit trafficking in toxic and hazardous waste products from Campania, shipped to steel-manufacturing companies operating in Udine and Brescia.

Everyone profits from the waste-management business. Criminal organizations profit. Politicians profit. Collection companies profit: those in Campania are among the most powerful in Italy, capable of forging relationships with the biggest groups in the world. The consortia profit: groups of several municipalities that join together to obtain cheaper prices for segregated collection, though then becoming fertile ground for patronage, rigged contracts and inflated invoices. A sphere where politics, clans and business concerns meet.

An inquiry conducted by Naples public prosecutors Alessandro Milita and Giuseppe Narducci has shown that these consortia have become the real centre of power in criminal organizations. Central to the investigation is the relationship between former Undersecretary of State for Finance Nicola Cosentino and waste-sector dealings conducted by brothers Sergio and Michele Orsi (the latter murdered by the terrorist arm of the Casalesi clan in June 2008, shortly after he began giving statements to the magistrates). The Orsi brothers’ businesses, such as the public–private partnership Eco4, are considered by the investigating magistrate to be ‘genetically linked to and operational with the Casalese Camorra’. According to informant Gaetano Vassallo, Cosentino exercised absolute control of ‘hiring, appointments and jobs’. To the point of claiming: ‘I am Eco4.’ As Michele Orsi said, 70 per cent of the hiring in the company was ‘done to coincide with elections’.

Anything and everything has been dumped in the landfills and in the Campania countryside. In Giugliano della Campania, in Schiavi and in Tre Ponti: 590,000 tons of sludge and sewage containing asbestos, sediments containing trichloroethylene; and 600,000 tons of automotive tyres and industrial equipment come from various centres each year.

In the Pianura landfill, between 1988 and 1991, the following waste arrived from Acna Cengio (in Savona province), known for dye manufacturing: 1 billion 300 million cubic metres of sludge; 300,000 cubic metres of sodium; 250,000 tons of poisonous sludge containing cyanide; 3.5 million cubic metres of toxic tars containing dioxins, amines, organic compounds derived from ammonia and containing nitrogen.

In the rural areas of Acerra, between 1995 and 2004: 1 million tons of industrial sludge from Porto Marghera, in the comune of Venice; 300,000 tons of chlorinated solvents.

In the districts of Bacoli, Giugliano and Qualiano: 1.8 tons of ‘non-hazardous’ waste; 190,000 tons of partially radioactive waste from hospitals; 2 million tons of material resulting from demolition and reconstruction.