Rome has a new city administration, headed by members of the insurgent Five-Star Movement, and they’re promising to have the city spick and span within a month.
That’s a tall order, as Rome has become known for piled garbage, frequent strikes and other problems in keeping the city clean, despite a sanitation budget that’s per capita 50% higher than the national average.
In an unusual move, the incoming administration demanded a plan for cleanup from the outgoing head of the department, and will now implement it. It covers every aspect of waste disposal from recycling to landfills to street cleaning.
It’s also interviewing candidates for a new head of sanitation. As can be expected, there are skeptics, many of them, that the cleanup can be done so fast or well…but it certainly needs to be done, and probably has more public support than Five-Star administrations in other cities that are at war with WiFi (see TravelGumbo report yesterday)
