Analysis

November 25, 2020

The startup taking on Rome’s mafia-ridden rubbish sector

Gianluca Vorrano, founder of the tech startup Borsino di Rifiuti, thinks he has the answer to Rome's long-standing rubbish problem.


If you walk right down by the Tiber in Rome’s postwar district of Portuense, a few miles south of the city’s centre, and look closely, you’ll see a strange debris caught in the river’s churn: plastic bottles, brown paper bags, polystyrene cartons, a flotilla of refuse deposited from the banks. Perhaps it has drifted in from neighbouring Ostiense, across the river, where the grand, stark-white Stazione di Roma Ostiense, still bearing fascist insignia, presides over a square into which half the city’s dustbins seem to have spilled. Or maybe it has tumbled downhill from the residential district of Gianicolense, where dumpsters overflow and dripping, engorged bin bags clutter the streets. 

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Ben Munster in Rome

Ben Munster is based in Rome and writes about Italian tech and startups for Sifted. He tweets at @Ben_Munster

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