ROME – Celebrities of the likes of Elena Santarelli, Claudia Gerini and Alessandro Gassmann took to social media Friday to denounce Roberto Gualtieri, mayor of Rome's failure to honour his pledge to solve the city’s rubbish problem. 

 After being elected Mayor of Rome in Oct 2021, Gualtieri, of the Democratic Party (PD), pledged to clean the streets, embarking on a 40-million-euro, four-point plan to tackle the city’s pressing litter issue. He promised the citizens that Rome would be clean by Christmas 2021, adding “perhaps sooner if we can move fast”. He said optimistically to La Repubblica in Oct that there would be an “extraordinary cleaning of Rome", involving cleaning the drains, mowing the lawns, removing the piles of rubbish, and sweeping and cleaning the streets. He was also in talks with AMA, the top management of the city's waste collection agency, to help achieve his plan.

 Months later and the Eternal City continues to be scourged by rubbish on the streets. Celebrities and citizens of the city hold Gualtieri to his pledge, insisting on its urgency to be delivered. 

 Elena Santarelli, Italian model, and actress, was the first to post of a photo on Instagram, captioned “Holidays in Rome” with a picture showing piles of litter abandoned on the pavement. She was then joined by Claudia Gerini who commented “How come nobody cleans this city?” and Alessandro Gassmann who shared a photo to Twitter, captioned “What a filthy pigsty, Rome, Europe, the historic centre”.  Citizens of Rome responded with their own photos, comments, and lamentations about the rubbish-covered streets. 

 These same celebrities who criticise the failed plan, played a part in Gualtieri’s election campaign; Gassmann publicly declared to have voted for him and Gerini denounced his opposition and predecessor, Virginia Raggi.

 Il fatto quotidiano reported that the plan had in fact been halfway achieved until winter, when the problem quickly picked up again. 

 Gualtieri himself has admitted defeat with his waste pledge; “the city is not as clean as it deserves to be”. As summer approaches and temperatures rise, citizens remain concerned about the city’s thought “unsolvable” problem.  

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