Full Coverage: Pollution

27.05.2004 The relaese of the Pljevlja Power Plant to the Montenegro electric power distribution system two nights ago caused another environmental incident in the near-by community of Zabrdje and the surrounding villages. Due to the increased emission of particles from the chimney of the Plant, Komine and the other villages and hamlets awoke under a layer of gray-brown carbon dust. The dust fell on the meadows and garders, and the villagers that gathered in the house of the president of the local environmental board from the Community of Zabrdje, Mima Ostojic, complained that the grazing fields for the cattle and the gardens were devastated.

27.05.2004 Albanian Minister of Environment Ethem Ruka said to Agence France Presse (AFP) on Monday, May 24, that the country is faced with a possible environmental crisis caused by release of poisonous gasses into the athmosphere.

27.05.2004 New environmental studies in Bhopal show that toxic materials from the Union Carbide plant have now seeped into the groundwater. 20 years on from the disaster a new generation is threatened by its fallout.

24.05.2004 A review by a US-based institute shows that air-pollution and health research in Asian countries is of a poor quality and the countries need to pull up their socks.

18.05.2004 The campaign “Back Off Plastic Bag”, organized by the Biosfera environmental NGO, started in Bitola. The campaign was officially opened on April 22, on Earth Day, and will last until June 5, the International Environment Day. The campaign is supported by the Milieukontakt OOS Europa.

14.05.2004 Environmental studies show that tons of toxic material which remain dumped at the Union Carbide plant, which sprang a leak nearly 20 years ago, have seeped into the groundwater.

06.05.2004 Unlike many bigger or smaller cities and towns in RS, but also in B&H in general, there are huge quantities of underground pottable water in the immediate vicinity of Prijedor. The existence of those reserves, which are ready to be exploited, were confirmed by last year’s survey and measurement of capacities of the two new wells in Matarusko Polje. However, unlike many other cities, Prijedor’s problem with water supply, in spite of the great reserves, remains to be solved.

04.05.2004 Litter is everywhere we look. Waste containers turned over, garbage left next to them, instead of inside, illegal dumps, garbage by the railroad, on the main street... Alas, nothing is quite new here. Those are the pictures we see everyday, asking the same question: How is it possible for people to do such a thing to themselves – throw the garbage in front of their own houses, fearing no infection or greater consequences, polluting the nature as if we don’t need it? There is no answer, for if there were one, such things wouldn’t happen at all.

03.05.2004 Survivors of the Union Carbide gas disaster in India are urging the UN to provide relief and rehabilitation work in Bhopal, where hundreds of thousands of people still suffer from exposure to toxic material.