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Venice is a very unique city when it comes to the way it handles its waste. Venice is a city built on water with a complex network of canals that carry water through the city. But water is not the only thing that the canals carry. The canals are the city's waste management system, with sewage from homes and businesses being dumped directly into the canal. The tides then carry the waste out into the lagoon twice a day.
Over the year the waste can however begin to build up and needs to be taken care of. The canals are dredged by blocking the water flow and then the mud and muck at the bottom is scraped up. In the past the collected sewage was dumped into the lagoon but with recent environmentally conscious laws that is no longer allowed. The sewage is now either taken to a treatment plant or dumped on one of two neighboring islands.
The city of Venice went almost 50 years before cleaning out its canals. A new $10 million project was started in the mid 1990's to clean all of the city's canals over a 20 year period. As the canals are dredged and cleaned the building's foundations are also reinforced and a more modern sewer system is put into place.