EU court fines Italy €40m for failing to clean up illegal waste
Source: Reuters
EU court fines Italy €40m for failing to clean up illegal waste
Reuters in Brussels
The Guardian, Tuesday 2 December 2014 17.05 GMT
The European court of justice has ordered Italy to pay €40m (£32m) for failing to tackle the dumping of illegal waste.
The Luxembourg-based court said it would impose further penalties of €42.8m for every six months that Italy failed to clean up hundreds of waste dumps, including many identified as containing dangerous toxic material.
The ruling underlines the failure of successive Italian governments to deal with an environmental scandal blamed for abnormal levels of cancer and other diseases in parts of the Campania region around the southern city of Naples.
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Fed by a mix of inefficiency, business interests and organised crime, illegal waste dumps, containing anything from household rubbish to highly toxic industrial effluent, have appeared in every region in Italy.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/02/eu-court-fines-italy-illegal-waste