Swiss utility offers to incinerate Naples trash
GENEVA, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A Swiss utility has offered to incinerate some of the 110,000 tonnes of trash piling up on the streets of Naples, but no deal has yet been struck, a company official said on Wednesday.
Christian Brunier, member of the Services Industriels de Geneve (SIG) executive committee, said the private company could accommodate up to 20,000 tonnes of Neapolitan rubbish in 2008 at its Cheneviers plant on the outskirts of Geneva.
"We have a lot of conditions, one of them being that the garbage be brought here by train," he told Reuters Television. The deal, if agreed upon by state authorities, could generate up to 4 million Swiss francs ($3.7 million) of income for SIG.
Trash collection in Naples and the surrounding Campania region stopped before Christmas when almost every dump was declared full. The European Union environment chief has said Brussels may fine Italy over what he called a waste disaster.
SIG's Cheneviers facility has in the past incinerated trash from France, Germany and Italy as well as Switzerland. It can incinerate up to 345,000 tonnes of rubbish a year. (Reporting by Anne Richardson and Vincent Fribault; Writing by Laura MacInnis; Editing by Caroline Drees)
