Federico Pistono

Two years ago a made a short video about the incinetaror in the province of Verona with the voluntary group "Amici di Beppe Grillo di Verona". It was the first video I ever made, so don't expect great editing, but it came from a passionate group of people trying to get a point across: don't burn our future, think about your health, first.

The video has no voiceovers, everything is written in Italian, and since I could not find the original Final Cut project, I uploaded the English substitles to YouTube (you can enable them on the bottom right corner of the video). Vimeo does not support closed captioning, so I'll post the video trascription instead.

Video Transcript (in English)

Ca' del Bue (incinerator)
distance from Verona: 5 Km
distance from San Martino: 3.1 Km
distance from San Giovanni: 1.9 Km
The construction of the Ca' del Bue Incinerator was initiated in 1988
Initially it was supposed to be built in the Basso Acquar zone
they then decided to build it where it stands now
Due to bribes regarding the selling of the land, the mayor of
the city, Sboarina, was sentenced to pay several million euros
The inquiry on the bribes regarding the construction of
the incinerator ended with many plea bargains
which involved several politicians and AGSM technicians.
Current status of the incinerator
closed
(for now)
1999: the facility begins the activities
first problem: the machineries for garbage selection are not adequate: they catch fire.
As a consequence, in 2000 the AGSM decides to
devaluate the facility: from 123 to 90 million euros.
But the problems continue
and it's very inefficient. The 2004 tests put a stop to the incinerator.
Ca' del Bue shuts down.
Now they want to open it again.
It's not true that incinerators get rid of landfills.
Next to Ca' del Bue they are supposed to build a huge landfill
for toxic ashes, which will be mixed with cement (up to 15%).
They call it "Ecocement"...
"Nothing can be created, nor destroyed, everything changes."
Antoine Lavoisier, law of conservation of mass
What come in Ca' del Bue does not disappear, but it transforms into:
gas emissions from chimneys in the form of nanoparticles
toxic ashes, wastewater
Lime, CO2, Nitrogen oxide
Nanoparticles enter our organism
Even animals can be affected by nanopathologies
the nanoparticles fly away and anyone can breath them in, people and animals alike
the wind transports them, the tiniest one can fly away for years
The PM10 particulate is called inhalable: the can enter
our respiratory system (from nose to larynx).
PM 2.5 can enter the lower part of the
respiratory system (from trachea to pulmonary alveoli).
Ca' del Bue produces PM 2.5
these sheep are pasturing next the incinerator
We wrote a petition to say NO the the incinerator and to demand
that Verona uses only biological and mechanical treatments for handling waste
To think that we can live our future simply by burning
everything, it means not to think of our future.
We ask you, if you share this position, to sign the petition. Thank you.
The solutions exist.
The biological and mechanical treatment (MBT) manages waste without combustion
no nanoparticles are produces, and the biogas is used to run the facility
The cost of building it is 1/4 that of a small incinerator
the residual is 15% of what gets in, and 10 times
less toxic than the one coming out of the incinerator
The MBT goes well with kerbside collection, whereas incineration goes against it.
Only after reducing and recycling the waste goes into the MBT.
I can see you!
Watch it when you buy something!
Italy produces every year the equivalent of a 635
meters high pyramid of plastic bottles in waste
33 times bigger than the Cheops pyramid in Egypt!
Waste sorting is important, but it's not enough!
In order to produce less waste even small, daily actions count
the box is useless!
buy products without packaging!
less plastic bags!
they break up easily
either you trow them away immediately...
or you pile them on unnecessarily
let's go back and use cloth bags, much stronger and durable
and if you want to bring the "Beppe" always with you...
we printed out his big face on them.

Next post on the subject... big surprise! Stay tuned.

p.s. This article was crossposted on the TH!NK ABOUT IT - Climate Change blogging competition.