Rome Trash Editorial Image

The reason for Rome’s poor recycling culture is partly because AMA, Rome`s calcified municipal environmental agency responsible for rubbish collection, has been slow off the mark. The company has been notoriously badly managed, changing chief executive officers five times in seven years, and has failed to allocate sufficient resources to build a citywide recycling infrastructure. AMA has become increasingly dependent on private companies and individuals to shoulder this burden, as well as waste operators as far afield as Portugal, Germany and the Netherlands. And leaning on the private sector in this way, especially those operating in the notoriously shadowy world of Italian waste management, brings its own unique challenges.The mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, who was elected last October, failed in his promise to give the city an “extraordinary clean-up” by Christmas, but now says 655 more rubbish collectors are being hired, with the first 155 due to start by the end of June. The council has also approved the creation of a committee to work on “guaranteeing decorum”.