Residents of the Campania region, where the streets of many towns have been lined with uncollected trash for weeks, pay some of the highest rubbish taxes in Italy, it emerged on Wednesday.
At 264 euros a year, the average refuse tax in the region surrounding Naples is 60 euros higher than the national average, according to a study by consumer rights group Cittadinanzattiva.
In the town of Caserta, the 'Tarsu' tax is 393 euros, almost four times what residents pay in Reggio Calabria, on the toe of the Italian boot.
The figures were released as the Italian parliament prepared to approve an emergency decree aimed at solving the Campania trash crisis by identifying four new sites for dumps and giving state officials special powers to take decisive action.
The trash disposal system in the Naples province practically ground to a halt earlier this year when the main dumps and treatment plants were declared full or overloaded.
The city of Naples was mostly free of trash on Wednesday after a massive effort over the weekend but the situation remained critical in many towns in the surrounding area.
Firefighters were called out 40 times during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday as angry residents set fire to the piles of uncollected rubbish.
Campania has suffered repeated trash emergencies in recent years but the current one has drawn international attention.
UIL union leader Luigi Angeletti expressed the feelings of many on Tuesday when he said: "The image that Naples is offering to the world with this trash crisis is destroying every possibility of attracting investment and launching development".
Last week the European Commission started infringement proceedings against Italy over the handling of waste in the region. It underlined the "risk of the spread of illnesses and of air, water and soil pollution".
The limits of the official trash disposal system in Campania has helped encourage illegal operations, managed by organised crime groups such as the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia.
A police operation in Campania on Wednesday uncovered an organisation which got rid of 980,000 tons of industrial waste over a two-year period by spreading it on fields and in rivers.
Police arrested 38 people connected to the organisation, which netted profits of around 7.5 million euros over the last two years.
