The land is mine and you shouldn’t touch it!

by Alessandro Ferrua

Campania Infelix. That’s the title of a book , to describe the plight of this beautiful region, subject to destruction because of the waste crisis, that begun sixteen years ago. The collapse of the “Palestra dei Gladiatori” (Gladiators Gym), on 6 November to Pompei, is a very serious problem that symbolizes the institutions that, like the building, give way because of neglect and fail in their capacity to accommodate and protect citizens who are fighting like gladiators, but without weapons or violence, to have a healthy land and a decent life.

There are those who resist on a “battlefield”, as now in Terzigno and those who resist outside of the fight itself, showing what can be virtuous behavior to be taken to save us from the “rubbish” in the long term, a global emergency. Campania is a region that still resists and opposes the overproduction of waste and its impact on society.

European Week for Waste Reduction is a great opportunity to show that it is possible to adopt sustainable lifestyles and there is need to continue to do so outside of this European event, like Campania is doing, with about 50 very effective actions. In Pompei, for example, there is a group of schools working together on an action with a suggestive title: “Do not consume unnecessarily, so that each brother could share all the goods of Creation”. And even stronger by the subtitle: “The land is mine and you shouldn’t touch it!”.
The project developers are the Didactic “Luigi Leone”, Secondary School of First Instance “Maiuri”, Second Didactic Circle of Pompeii, Intermediary State School “Matteo Della Corte” and Elementary Equalized School “Bartolo Longo”.

«The action is aimed at the general public, but the main actors are children and school children who go around raising awareness on waste prevention in shops, offices, banks, post office, but also in the family. In all those places where adults can be involved», says Nadia Citarella, head teacher of the Didactic “Luigi Leone” and adds that «it also included a meeting with the grandparents who go into schools to explain how life was once , when they didn’t produce these mountains of waste». The action very interesting because it involves and connects generations. In fact, sustainability is reached by taking inspiration from best practices of the past, responding to the needs and technologies of the present. «There will also be a walk in the National Park of Vesuvio, where- says Citarella - I remember , there is a landfill of first class, a deposit of assimilated municipal waste».

It is inevitable that the more you are in contact with a critical situation that you can see up close and you can experience the adverse effects, the more we are led to face it with courage and patience, “from the start”. In this way the positive will of the people who believe strongly in change is an example to all others.