Let’s put pressure on the Italian government to correct the law on environmental crime. Unfortunately, we citizens pay every day for the lack of a clear legal framework around crimes that are harmful to the environment.
We're addressing our petition to Prime Minister Renzi, to the President of the Chamber Laura Boldrini and to the President of the Senate Piero Grasso in order to ensure the Parliament and the government intervenes and says STOP POISONED ITALY.
In the next few days, the Italian Parliament will approve a law on environmental crime. Unfortunately, we citizens are paying everyday for the lack of a clear legal framework around the crimes which harm the environment and, consequently, us.
From the “Ilva” steel factory in Taranto to the “Triangle of Death” between Naples and Caserta, from the gigantic dump in Bussi (Abruzzo region) to the highly poisonous former factory (ex-Caffaro) in Brescia, Italy is scattered with huge areas contaminated by industrial poisons and toxic waste.
In the air, in the soil, in the subsoil, in the surface and underground water of this Poisoned Italy, there is a constantly very high quantity, generally greater to thresholds defined by the law on health and environmental risk, of heavy metals, hydrocarbons and other dangerous and polluting substances which have already been shown to damage the health of millions citizens.
It is time that our Parliament listened to the demands of us “polluted people” and deal effectively with the dangerous situation.
We launch this petition in order to initiate a “Green New Deal” which puts the environment, its protection, its enhancement and the promotion of a sustainable development at the centre of public policy.
For this reason, we address our plea to the Prime Minister Renzi, to the President of the Chamber Laura Boldrini and to the President of the Senate Piero Grasso to take the following steps in the short term.
- Approval by the Chamber of Deputies of a law on environmental crimes that corrects the project's crucial limits (and in particular which eliminates the current obligation to demonstrate the irreversibility of environmental disasters) and which, by properly implementing the European Directive 2008/99, defines specific crimes for all malicious behaviours (industrial pollution, illegal transport and processing of waste...) which damage the environment and the health of people;
- Establishing a public “fund”, funded through a mandatory tax for all the companies that process toxic substances, in order to finance cleanup operations in contaminated areas. Moreover, European structural funds should primarily be given to projects aimed at restoring contaminated areas and at ecologically reconverting the most polluted industrial areas;
- Fully implementing the European Directive on environmental liability (2004/35), which envisages the obligation to remedy for any operator whose activity has caused environmental damage. This Directive is largely not applied in Italy due to its ineffective implementation.