“Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out”

My most recent post on Naples’ garbage conundrum called an old Shel Silverstein poem to mind. I didn’t have a copy on hand, but found it posted at lyricsplayground—

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She’d scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,
Gloopy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans and tangerines,
Crusts of black burned buttered toast,
Gristly bits of beefy roasts…
The garbage rolled on down the hall,
It raised the roof, it broke the wall…
Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Globs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from green baloney,
Rubbery blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled milk and crusts of pie,
Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold French fries and rancid meat,
Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.
At last the garbage reached so high
That finally it touched the sky.
And all the neighbors moved away,
And none of her friends would come to play.
And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
“OK, I’ll take the garbage out!”
But then, of course, it was too late…
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate.
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah met an awful fate,
That I cannot right now relate
Because the hour is much too late.
But children, remember Sarah Stout
And always take the garbage out!

Stench figurative and literal: Naples’ garbage crisis deepens

Back in January, I made three separate posts about the mountains of garbage accumulating in the streets of Naples, Italy: “Naples Stinks,” “Followup: Sardinians Resent Naples’ Garbage,” and “Followup: Naples’ Garbage Crisis Laid Bare.” Now, here’s the latest–

(There are two kinds of human filth, here. One is obvious and may be cleaned up with garbage trucks and street cleaners. The other kind is harder to see and is notoriously hard to clean up.)

Camorra cause a stink in Naples

[via telegraph.co.uk]

The Mob has proved no better than Italy’s inept municipal authorities at running waste disposal business properly.

(Excerpt)

..the Mob has proved no better than Italy’s inept municipal authorities at running the service properly. Barely any new waste processing facilities have been built in Naples for decades, and since last December, the region’s dumps have been full to capacity and unable to take any more. Hence the refuse piles 20 feet high in Naples’ once-picturesque alleyways, and hence what Neapolitans call La Puzza, or The Stink.

With it has come another unpleasant smell – less easily detectable but just as familiar in Italian public life. It is the whiff of corruption, and the sneaking feeling that the situation got so out of hand because of murky links between the Comorra and the city’s administration, stymying modern refuse projects that might threaten their waste rackets.

“The fish starts to stink from the head, so we should blame the political class,” said Quarto Gennaro, 51, nursing an espresso in a cafe in Forcella, an old-time Camorra district packed with loafing, jowelly men resembling Sopranos extras. “They always act together with the criminals….”

Read the full article

I Love NY, and it stinks

Maybe you’ve seen the Futurama episode, “A Big Piece of Garbage,” where “New” New York is threatened by an enormous ball of garbage launched into space by “Old” New York a millenium earlier. That’s not so far fetched, really–

As landfills close in big cities, garbage travels farther

From the Jackson Hole Star Tribune

NEW YORK (AP) — The trains that rumble from the Harlem River rail yard in the South Bronx are sealed tight, but there is no mistaking what lies inside them.

The stench gives it away. The trains, some a mile long, are filled with garbage.

The railcars are part of an armada that performs a nearly constant exodus of waste from the nation’s largest city. Each day, trains and trucks carry 50,000 tons of trash from New York to huge landfills and incinerators in New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina….

The Blob LIVES

Grease, flour and rags, eh? That could almost be an around-the-campfire speciality to warm the hearts and bellies of the indigent – sort of like boiled boot, panbread, or hobo coffee.

One thing is quite certain, without even being there in person to acertain it: the blob stinks.

City Battles Giant Blob

LEWISTON, Maine — A large, mysterious blob has taken over a major sewer line in the city of Lewiston, leaving public works crews stumped as to how to budge it.

According to city officials, the stretch of 12-inch pipe on Main Street backed up on Jan. 13, and the city has been trying unsuccessfully to clear the line ever since.

Deputy Public Services Director Kevin Gagne told News 8 the doughy, 90-foot mass is comprised of grease, flour and rags. (source)

A toejam credit to Middle at Fist Of Blog, for the heads up.

Followup: Naple’s Garbage Crisis laid bare

This article goes considerably more into depth than articles posted here, previously.

The rotten heart of Italy: See Naples and die (of the stench)

Southern Italy’s most celebrated city is drowning in refuse, paralysed by corruption and almost bereft of hope. Peter Popham reports on a life-threatening crisis

The city of Naples, Italy’s third biggest, the capital of the south, is caught in a trap of its own devising. And if you drive to the suburb of Pianura where police have been fighting with residents this week, you can get a good idea of the cruelty and fatality of this trap; and why there is a whiff of fear in the city’s air just now, mixed with the stench of putrid rubbish….

Read the entire article

Followup: Sardinians Resent Naples’ Garbage

Followup to “Naples Stinks”—

Garbage Grates as Sardinians Clash with Police

Via Euronews.net

Police in Sardinia have clashed with islanders angered by the arrival of 500 tonnes of rubbish. A cargo vessel loaded with rancid garbage docked at the port of Cagliari, where protestors were out in force in an attempt to stop the ship unloading. The waste had been shipped from Naples on Italy’s mainland. Refuse collection in Napels ground to a halt before Christmas after tips in area were declared full.

In an attempt to ease the growing public health implications Prime Minister Romano Prodi called on Italy’s regional authorities to accept some of the 140.000 tonnes of rubbish. Sardinia was the first to answer the call.

However, some residents on the island have taken exception to governor Renatu Soro’s decision. Firefighters say they were called out 25 times to put out fires in 48 garbage containers. Critics believe the Campania region’s rubbish problem stems from years of corruption and political cowardice, with local government unable to end Mafia control of the waste industry.

Video: Naples’ Trash Crisis

Naples Stinks

Stench of battle hangs over Naples as rubbish protests turn violent

Richard Owen, of the Times Online (UK), in Naples

[Excerpts]

It is the stench that you notice first. Then, as you get closer, you see and smell the mountains of rubbish: coloured plastic bags, black dustbin liners, cardboard boxes sodden with overnight rain, a carpet of broken glass. Yesterday Italian troops from units more used to service in Iraq and the Balkans were called in to start clearing the festering piles of rubbish from the streets of Naples….

…The crisis has engulfed the centre, after the city’s landfills, long over-stretched, finally reached capacity over Christmas. Amidst claims that the Naples Mafia is sabotaging attempts to open new landfills, more than 110,000 tonnes of waste has been left festering on the streets….

Read the complete article