Bucharest is rather a dirty town, than a polluted one
         Bucharest isn’t so much polluted by industrial activities as  just plain dirty. This is the  opinion of people that are responsible for the environmental protection in our city. The Local Council and the Environmental Protection Agency  started a public debate about an action plan . It  takes care of  100 environmental  problems that were identified  in Bucharest, such as air pollution,  pollution of subteran and surface water, public transportation, management of waists, public health, degrading of natural environment and ecological education of  the inhabitants.
The Botanical Garden  is waisting away
          According to official data, the verdure spots have decreased by 50% during the last14 years,  to less than 10 square metres per person. Trees grow old and die and they are not replaced.
          A special case is the Botanical Garden, a surface of 17,5 square hm, of which a big part is  degraded as a result of a hot water pipe damage. Since then, almost nothing was done.
The sewage problem
        Another big problem that could even stop our country from joining the U.E. is about sewage  that is taken care of by a French society. All the town’s sewage must be fit by the end of 2006.
Starting fom Janury 2007, no other way to dispose of dirty water will be allowed because it can pollute underground water and even go through punctured drinking water pipes.
Gas stations near the blocks of flats , a lead pollution source
           Heavy traffic and bad management  are the cause of air and fonic pollution. The lungs of the  inhabitants of Bucharest are filled with  exhaust gases and dust from street repairing and building sites. Domestic refuse are an important cause of pollution, especially because in some parts of the
town they are thrown on the banks of the lakes or of the river Dambovita or on verdure spots.
Chaotic parking, old buildings ready to fall at an earthquake, not enough bicycle tracks, gas stations  too close to the blocks of flats are some of our city’s  environmental problems. One can add to that degraded  pieces of land, pollution of lakes such as Fundeni and Herastrau by sewage water at any heavy rain. These are things everyone knows, but too little was done to get rid of all these problems.
Students’s actions
           The Eco-Map of Bucharest  is a project that aims to attract high-school pupils in a complex activity of  evaluating  the environmental health of our town. They will make photos and reports on Bucharest’s problems that they will hand to officials in the City Council and to the press.
              In the honour of Earth’s Day (April 22), students cleaned a park and organised exhibitions, a march for the endagered species, planted trees, worked in the Botanical Garden etc.
              Eco- Detectives: students opened a hot-line in order to find out and report to authorities about crimes against nature (such as illegal tree-cutting). They tried to make both the authorities and the whole community more responsible.
               Spaceship container: pupils will bury for 50 years a box containing data about the social and environmental situation in our country today in order to compare them with tho ones in the year 2055.

Sent by Irina Vasilescu