>>> Today, Tuesday 14 May at 4:00pm, I’ll be in Corato. At 8:00pm I’ll be in Barletta. Tomorrow, Wednesday 15 May, I’ll be in Ancona (at 9:00 pm). The live broadcasts will be on La Cosa! <<<<<<<<<<<<

We’ve got to 30%. At the next elections we’ll have the whole country. We’ll get a country reduced to rubble. We’ll be the Civil Defence force. I no longer want to see those faces, those amateurs that have been in the palaces for twenty years. We are ready with all our proposals, with the citizen’s income, with the abolition of the IRAP tax. We have given back 42 million euro for reimbursements of election expenses and they are getting wound up over the daily amount. Why don’t they go and have a look at how much money is being kept by the people of the PDL and the PDminusL?
We are offering candidates in 150 towns now and in 42 in Sicily in June. That’s three times the number we had last year. The foundation of the MoVement is expanding in a geometric progression: they will not stop us any more. In fact they have a terrible terror. A terror that makes them make mistakes. Interpellations about who holds the money when it would be enough to go to the leader or the treasurer of the parliamentary group. It’s not me that handles the money. They are trying to block the Internet. Just watch what they’ll do now. They take it out on 20 young people from Nocera Inferiore for some comments on the blog.
Everyday, in all the newspapers with their headlines that associate us with subversion, with Nazism, with everything. But we are fed up with getting knocked about, getting lied about, having dossiers on us. A press like that has never existed before. We are in a ruthless war. We’ll use their methods.
And now the politicians are doing “cut and paste”. The Ministers are having a retreat in a Monastery. Now they’ve discovered that they don’t have to go on TV, and who gave them that idea? They placed their second choices in the Ministries. They know they won’t last. They’ve stolen time. They are stealing time. But now they no longer have a future. Things need calming down and they have to go home. Let’s send them ALL home, as we’ve always said. Here someone who is coherent is singled out as a terrorist. We we are simply being coherent. In our election campaign, we said “send them ALL home” and now that’s what we’re doing. We said no alliance. We are not making alliances. They are not going out and about. They are staying closed up inside the palaces. I’m out and about in the streets. I’m out in the streets with the people. Do you want to challenge me? OK, I’ll give you the microphone. They can’t possibly go out into the streets. They don’t know what’s out there. Desperate people arrive at the gate of my home, because they can never find anyone representing the State that they can talk to. For them, the State is the carabiniere who then arrests them. In the Movement there are people that respond, people who talk. That’s already a miracle in this country.

You could find these posts interesting:

Bureaucracy that strangles rights

Suicides for debts

Not in my name

Rossano Ercolini's address
(13:00)

“The European Union itself has said that in order to get through this crisis we have to launch the recycling industry as the driving industry and indeed, in the United States, the recycling industry employs more people, in fact far more people than the automobile industry.
On the final day of my recent visit to Washington I was fortunate enough to meet with the American trade unions that back the zero refuse strategy. It doesn’t take some sort of extraordinary public spiritedness, all it takes is some basic financial sense, yet there is a small section of the Italian political and administrative class that continues to be extremely united and collusive, perhaps at the intellectual level and not necessarily in a dirty, corrupt sense, with the filthy, subsidised refuse incineration industry.” Rossano Ercolini.

The Passaparola of Rossano Ercolini, co-ordinator of the Capannori Municipality Zero Refuse research centre and winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize 2013

Maximum re cycling
My name is Rossano Ercolini. I am co-ordinator for the Capannori Municipality Zero Refuse research centre, President of “Ambiente e Futuro” and now also winner of what I believe is one of the most important awards and one of which I am extremely proud, namely the 2013 Goldman Award. Obviously I am very determined to make full use of the media exposure that this award has given to my position, my personal image and to all those people that have continued the battle against killer plants and dirty industrial plants, obviously promoting the Zero Refuse alternative. It seems that in the Nordic countries, from Holland through to Sweden and Norway, they are currently experiencing a crisis, an emergency, due to the fact that there is so much recycling going on, all of which is denying refuse to the incinerators. They are now claiming that they are experiencing an energy crisis that is making it impossible for them to heat their towns.
This has really surprised me because we have known for some time that we are facing a crisis, but that crisis is the other way around, in other words a so-called overcapacity crisis, meaning that these plants that were designed a decade or so ago are simply too large. Designed to incinerate somewhere between one and two thousand tons of refuse per day whereas now, with the level of re cycling increasing, they no longer have sufficient refuse to power those incinerators. So much so in fact, that as we know, it has become cheaper for the Campania Region to send refuse to Holland by ship than to send that same refuse to Acerba so those Countries, like Holland, Sweden and Denmark, which built these huge incinerators are now finding it extremely difficult to source sufficient refuse to keep these mega-plants working.
This should serve as a warning for those people here in Italy who continue to press for the construction of plants that, due to their complex technology, require major financial investment and must therefore be extremely large. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the Brescia plant was built to handle two thousand tons per day and the Acerba plant the same again because the running costs and the investment required to build these plants means that as much refuse as possible has to be found somewhere just to keep them running.
Since we are now effectively on a collision course with what the European Union is urging and indeed obliging its member states to do, we have finally realised that there is an urban time-bomb brewing in our refuse bins, so now we are being urged to recycle as much as possible. However, this means that there is also a crisis with this type of incinerator plant so wherever they are discussing building similar plants, for example in Turin, Parma and Florence, we somehow have to get these stubborn donkeys or even worse, requiring other adjectives, but basically our administrators to understand that the era of the incinerators has passed, as is being proven by the overcapacity at the northern European incinerators.
Well, what actually amazing is the aggressive way in which the lobby groups are trying to overturn the truth by claiming that there is a crisis right around the corner in that if the incinerators can’t run then the entire Scandinavia will be at the mercy of the glaciers... but frankly speaking these word games are truly grotesque to say the least.
So there’s this total so-called heating from refuse crisis, so much so in fact that while Denmark is currently incinerating more than 60% of their refuse, the Danish government has approved a document that makes provision for a gradual exit strategy, in other words a gradual move away from the incineration of refuse since the European Union has repeatedly issued a warning that the need for raw materials is set to increase over the next 25 years and we will face a raw material scarcity, hence the warning that we must recover and recycle any metals, paper and polymers from our refuse bins. These are all extremely valuable materials that are contained in our refuse.
So, to an objective observer, this is the picture that is being painted not surprisingly by the European Union. Here in Italy, notwithstanding the fact that the criticisms have certainly not ended, it is safe to say that the wave of “heating from refuse” that began in the early 2000s has been halted, if not eliminated completely, however, there are a few ongoing battles that in harsh terms sound a bit like the battle of Stalingrad, except that this Stalingrad is in Turin, Parma and Florence.
In this regard we simply have to continue the campaign forcefully, a campaign that has three legs, one leg being firmly planted in the local battle to block the construction of these disposal or incineration plants, some of which I have mentioned specifically. The second leg of the campaign lies in promoting and increasing the number of municipalities that officially adopt the objective of zero refuse. The third leg of the campaign is to piggy-back on the campaign started by gathering signatures for the promulgation of a National zero refuse law. While this explanation may well be overly simplistic, it is nevertheless a representation of what we are facing and which we were and still are able to propose.
After all, while this award of which I am extremely proud is awarded to an individual, the philosophy behind the award means that it is awarded to a leader who represents a particular communal school of thought. These days all eyes are on what is happening here in Italy and in preparing my acceptance speech for the award ceremony to be held in San Francisco, I did a quick count of the number of incinerators that we have managed to block over the past 15 years, which turns out to be at least 50 just here in Italy! That’s between pyrogasification plants like the one in the Aosta Valley and those in Valdera, incinerators and cement kilns, not to mention the ongoing battle against the giant waste disposal dumps.
So let’s say that while we must continue battling and soldiering on, we do have a history that includes a number of memorable victories. The Zero Refuse concept is spreading within our culture and is also penetrating our administration culture in that it is not only the associations, 5-Star Meet-up groups and 5-Star Groupings that are backing the Zero Refuse concept, but also mayors, councillors … Obviously the ones I mentioned are the critical ones because if they somehow manage to get that fraudulent plant up and going in Parma, that would be a defeat not only for the Emilia Romagna Region and Parma in particular, but also for the entire food valley. It would be a defeat for Europe and therefore for us. On the twentieth I will be in Parma with Paul Connett to conduct a blitz, an evening during which we are hoping to demand some answers with regard to the monstrous happenings surrounding the incinerator that Iren probably needs in order to hide its financial failures, since everyone is aware that Iren has invested in the Livorno regasification terminal that never got off the ground, a contraption that is supposed to store cold gas but has become little more than an ever increasing financial black hole that Iren is somehow hoping to shore up, a kind of Titanic if you will.

Public opposition
Well, the messages we are receiving from the people on the signature gathering campaign are not merely encouraging but absolutely exciting in that it appears that we have already very easily exceeded the minimum requirement of 50-thousand signatures and the number of stalls are still increasing throughout Italy. The ease with which we are managing to get people to sign indicates that the zero refuse strategy has really struck a chord with the common man in the street and is being perceived not only as something that is good for the environment, but as something that also makes sound financial sense, especially at this time of economic crisis.”
The European Union itself has said that in order to get through this crisis we have to launch the recycling industry as the driving industry and indeed, in the United States, the recycling industry employs more people, in fact far more people than the automobile industry.
On the final day of my recent visit to Washington I was fortunate enough to meet with the American trade unions that back the zero refuse strategy. It doesn’t take some sort of extraordinary public spiritedness, all it takes is some basic financial sense, yet there is a small section of the Italian political and administrative class that continues to be extremely united and collusive, perhaps at the intellectual level and not necessarily in a dirty, corrupt sense, with the filthy, subsidised refuse incineration industry.
But Clini himself, because statistically we know that when the dedicated incineration industry is called that the incineration actually takes place in incinerator plants that burn either urban refuse or urban refuse plus medical or special waste, but when there is an dedicated incineration crisis the ever present pendulum swings toward doing the incineration in the cement plants, so it comes as no surprise then that Clini tried to launch the idea of incineration in cement plants because there is no room whatsoever for dedicated incinerators. These days the incentives that are given for the burning of refuse have declined enormously although they are potentially still available, so the running costs of these plants are rising day by day because there’s not enough grist for the mill.
Hence the anger, because they are wasting time instead of forcefully promoting sound practices! This is the strong message that needs to be sent to the political class above and beyond the controversies, namely that you guys are wasting time, you’re making us waste time and you’re making us waste environmental resources, which are also financial resources. Those who continue to insist on supporting this kind of plant at all costs are doing so in a knowingly criminal manner, or at least in the knowledge that they are bucking the trend in terms of what should be the economic, environmental and health “musts”.
However, in addition to passion, I am also asking the listeners to carefully evaluate the issues.
I have just completed an interview with a journalist from Le Monde who came to Capannori, to my municipality. He met with the Mayor and myself and we went and took a look at some good practices, etc and I would like to say that there is a lot of interest in the Zero Refuse concept. After all, and I say again, if they have granted this award, well, it’s not the Goldman guys, there’s actually a jury that decides who is the worthy recipient, and I am particularly honoured to receive it. Inter alia, it came as an incredible surprise to discover that there was indeed someone who was keeping track of what I do and it is a satisfaction that I welcome, above all because of the power that it gives to our message. If the Goldman Foundation wanted to put us under the spotlight right there in the heartland of incineration, because Europe and Japan are at the forefront in terms of refuse incineration technology, so if they wanted to regard those that are fighting a battle against the incinerators and promoting Zero Refuse, it means that the world is indeed changing! What I’m saying is that California is the home of Silicon Valley, and here we’re not talking about being behind or generally passionate, and San Francisco is a model for environmental management! Not only in terms of managing waste materials, but also in terms of managing traffic, in other words the ability to live in a small space. They took us to meet some young guys that have rehabilitated a Golden Gate park that had been polluted by the military. The park was rehabilitated by thousands and thousands of volunteers, so we’re in the home of environmental excellence here, which is also economic excellence by the way. I believe that if we now join forces, make ourselves heard and combine our sacrosanct battle to protect our health, our environment and our common assets with the economic opportunity that derives from the repair, reutilisation and recycling industry, then I believe that we are destined to win.
Indeed we are already inning. If there are already some 125 municipalities representing some three million citizens that have officially adopted the Zero Refuse concept across the board, it means that this is no longer merely a niche market, but that there is something profound in our message. It is no longer acceptable to have people who are being paid, because there are a bunch of top managers, which I call Tap managers, heading up these multi-utility companies, but are acting as plugs by blocking the development of good practices.
These gentlemen who are highly paid, often with our money, are not doing their job. The gentlemen in question are our public officials and the lobby groups that support them, and believe me they are actively supporting them, not to mention the direct bribery and corruption, and backing a criminal argument. So I’m asking everyone to actively follow the Parma affair because at the moment that really is the metaphorical “line in the sand”. I know that with Pizzarotti and with the exposure that the 5-Star movement has had, you guys are particularly involved and perhaps even more than a little frustrated since you know exactly what the situation is, a situation in which there is something that you don’t want but began purely as an experiment by a cruel trick of fate etc., however, I have a streak of pure if not easy optimism in me, so I believe that wherever there is strong public opposition these plants invariably land up sliding on banana peels. We must not become discouraged, not even if they move on from the testing phase to the start-up phase.
Greetings and hugs to everyone and remember, lets close ranks and work together for Parma’s benefit.
And obviously spread the word, spread the word, spread the word, not only about the choice but also about getting accurate information, spread the word.