This chapter provides a reassessment of the waste ‘crises’ in the so-called Land of Fires in Italy and highlights the contribution of local social mobilizations in advancing environmental justice and sustainability concerns. It is based on the longterm collaboration between a social scientist and two activists, and it draws from a dialogue of academic and activist knowledge in the tradition of Environmental Justice organizations and scholarship. Our contention is that local communities and ecologies of this area have borne the brunt of the socio-environmental costs of waste disposal and industrial production. This translated into risks of contamination for the residents, suffering threats to health and stigmatization. To this state of affairs, local grassroots environmental movements answered by confederating into a regional coalition that arranged on November 16, 2013, one of the biggest environmental justice demonstrations in Italian history, spurring the intervention of the State via legislation and resources. The coalition was also instrumental in the elaboration of the Pact for the Land of Fires, a programmatic commitment to end illegal waste disposal that defined the obligations for the institutional and civil society signatories. Finally, we show how the experience of activists is systematized and coordinated today through the initiative of the Civic Observers, an association of citizens that monitors environmental crimes and conditions in cooperation with public officials.

This chapter provides a reassessment of the waste 'crises' in the so-called Land of Fires in Italy and highlights the contribution of local social mobilizations in advancing environmental justice and sustainability concerns. It is based on the long¬term collaboration between a social scientist and two activists, and it draws from a dialogue of academic and activist knowledge in the tradition of Environmental Justice organizations and scholarship. Our contention is that local communities and ecologies of this area have borne the brunt of the socio-environmental costs of waste disposal and industrial production. This translated into risks of contamination for the residents, suffering threats to health and stigmatization. To this state of affairs, local grassroots environmental movements answered by confederating into a regional coalition that arranged on November 16, 2013, one of the biggest environmental justice demonstrations in Italian history, spurring the intervention of the State via legislation and resources. The coalition was also instrumental in the elaboration of the Pact for the Land of Fires, a programmatic commitment to end illegal waste disposal that defined the obligations for the institutional and civil society signatories. Finally, we show how the experience of activists is systematized and coordinated today through the initiative of the Civic Observers, an association of citizens that monitors environmental crimes and conditions in cooperation with public officials.

This article traces the flow of municipal solid waste from southern Italy through a waste‐to‐energy facility and district heating system in Austria, examining the roles that waste's transformation from contaminant to commodity to fuel plays in interconnected, distributed, and contested urbanization processes. It contends that, while metabolic circulation hides socioecological costs in one place to facilitate valorization in another, specific spatial configurations emerge through territorialization—of waste economies, in this case—providing the spatial base to realize metabolic flows and to anchor political narratives. A decisive effect is that certain patterns of urbanization become locked‐in, impeding alternative metabolic transitions and spatial configurations. Attending to the coproduction of three sites—Naples, Italy; Zwentendorf, Austria; and St Pölten, Austria—through the circulation and transformation of waste and energy the article provides an empirical multi‐sited case study of a political ecology of urbanization.

This paper applies an analytical method for developing policy strategies to optimize municipal waste management systems (MWMSs) to the case of the Land of Fires (LoF). The LoF is an area of Italy’s Campania region that is characterized by a legacy of authoritarian environmental governance and the improper dumping and burning of waste. In this paper, we employ the fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) method, which draws on a participatory approach. Specifically, the complexity of the investigated system was determined from the causal relations identified by relevant stakeholders and experts. The results show that the most effective policy strategies to improve the LoF MWMS, as identified by informants, include: fostering social innovation (e.g. communication and information campaigns); promoting technological innovation (e.g. material and process design); and supporting scientific and technological cooperation among actors. The overall diversity of the identified policy strategies suggests that policy makers must move beyond a simple “best option” approach, given the systemic complexity of the waste management sector.