The mayor of Naples on Thursday ordered armed guards to escort garbage trucks around his city, warning that organised crime rings were fomenting a grave waste crisis that is putting residents at risk.

"The environmental and sanitary situation is serious. There is a real risk for the health of citizens. The situation is made more difficult because the garbage is being set on fire," Luigi de Magistris told reporters.

"We will ask the police to provide an armed guard for the trucks," he said after signing an order that will enforce the new measure for 30 days.

Naples is the stronghold of the Camorra -- a powerful international crime syndicate with a wide range of activities including drug trafficking, as well as major interests in construction, import-export and waste disposal.

De Magistris said the Camorra was against him because he wanted an "environmental revolution" that would enforce legislation on recycling garbage and therefore take a chunk of traditional revenues away from the Camorra.

The newly-elected leftist mayor of the southern Italian city also accused Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his government of failing to help.

"Berlusconi has shown with his actions that he doesn't give a damn about Naples. He has washed his hands of it like Pontius Pilate," he said.

De Magistris won a local election last month against a candidate from Berlusconi's ruling People of Freedom party, which also lost control of Milan.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano also stepped into the debate over the garbage crisis in Naples, plagued for years by problems with its waste disposal system that have been aggravated by the stranglehold of the mafia.

"An intervention is absolutely indispensable and urgent due to the worsening of the acute and alarming waste emergency in Naples," Napolitano told Il Mattino, the local newspaper in Naples, calling on Berlusconi to take action.

De Magistris said garbage collection would continue around the clock, as local residents stage spontaneous protests around the city over the problem.

The government last month mobilised the army to help clear garbage from city streets, where angry local residents forced to walk around in masks or covering their mouths begun setting fires to the black bags piling up.

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