ROME -- The alderwoman for the environment in the Rome city council, Paola Muraro, has confronted the city’s waste management organisation, AMA, accusing them of neglecting their responsibility to clean up the streets: “those who are guilty in AMA must pay… the people of Rome are right, you are not cleaning the city.”

 The Eternal City is still in the middle of a waste crisis and it’s not making progress on cleaning up its act.  Yet to come out of this rubbish related ‘emergency’, a new deadline has been set for August 20 for the capital to be cleaned up.

 “There is a chronic problem with AMA,” Muraro said, “which dates all the way back to its establishment. Yesterday I was walking through the streets near the Via Nazionale and I saw mountains of black bin bags from the night before. You can’t just leave them there in moments of terror like this when they could be hiding a bomb underneath,” she continued.

 The plan to clean the streets of Rome was set in force by AMA’s president, Daniele Fortini, after he was called on by Muraro to come up with a solution to the ever-increasing problem of waste in the capital.

 Fortini has resigned from his position as president and will officially leave his post on August 4. Muraro has said that “we are already searching for a successor for the role of AMA president. Citizens needs to say calm… we will choose someone on the basis of merit, not politics.”

 Despite Rome’s citizens paying 250 euros a year to keep the streets clean, rubbish litters even the city’s most iconic tourist spots, a problem which has angered residents for decades. New Mayor Virginia Raggi promised to make it one of her goals to tackle the ongoing problem of waste, but real results are yet to be seen.

 lej-se