La ecological day for the cleaning of the forest last Sunday unfortunately it ended in a fire and turned the current news into a news story. But let's start from the beginning. Last Sunday on the Gavorranese territory a group of hunters and volunteers joined an initiative of the hunting association Cct in which numerous quantities of rubbish were collected. The two boar hunting teams of the territory, The Caldanese and that of Ravi they had contributed to the recovery of numerous waste scattered in the Maremma woods, many of which were also bulky. From glass bottles to cans, from mattresses to rusty gas cylinders, from waste building materials to automotive batteries and tires, in addition to another myriad of waste abandoned everywhere.
The amount of garbage collected was high and at the end of the day the waste was set aside in some different points (according to the place of cleaning) pending collection by Sei Toscana. On Tuesday morning, two days later, in a square at Poderi Bassi di Caldana a long column of black smoke invaded the air of the village: the waste collected on Sunday had caught fire and it was necessary the intervention of the fire brigade and the police. Hence the decision by the Municipality to suspend next Sunday's initiative of the second ecological day and the consequent bitterness of the organizers.
The dynamics of the events and the question of responsibility for what happened are not clear. It seems that the police would have contested the place where the waste was left, assuming an abandonment of bulky waste, and this would have given rise to some controversy between the organizers and the administration. The Municipality of Gavorrano specifies that the initiative was absolutely commendable, but that the bulky and considered special waste, rather than collected, should have been reported to the environmental office of the entity which would subsequently arrange for the recovery and removal. Furthermore the storage places chosen by the volunteers would have been unsuitable. In short, from a charity initiative a fuss was born, indeed a column of smoke, of controversy. Volunteers resented that they would have acted exclusively for the common good and felt covertly accused of abandoning waste. Too bad for both parties given the common interest in protecting the environment.
The mayor Andrea Biondi also intervenes on the issue. "Unfortunately - he says - the vandalism has brought to light the potential responsibilities also towards the organizing associations, for this reason as an administration we have taken care to try to coordinate these praiseworthy initiatives, establishing procedures to protect the associations themselves. The unfortunate episode - he underlines - should not stop these initiatives, but encourage us to carry them out in the best possible way and in a more coordinated way, above all to protect responsibilities ». In short, if the common interest of the parties is that of improve and protect the environment, there is the hope that from this misunderstanding in the future even a more structured and useful project may be born (The rush).