Residents of Three Sofia Districts Protest Poor Air Quality

Residents of three districts in Sofia (Krasna Polyana, Zapaden Park and Ovcha Kupel) on 11th of December protested against poor air quality. The protesters gathered in front of the Ministry of Environment and Water, reports BNT. 

They insist that the Ministry of Environment and Water take on the role of a controlling body managing the incineration of municipal waste, as the main cause of the polluted air in the three neighborhoods is the unregulated incineration of municipal waste.

They explained that in the recent days, they identified that very poor people bought second-hand clothes to use them for burning and thus pollute the air with the harmful vapours from the dyes and chemicals in the clothes.

The ministry replied that they were acting as a controlling authority and argued that only last week there were four checks which resulted in fines to people residing in municipal dwellings in the neighbourhoods in question. However, the protesters demanded more effective measures.

Statistics show that November was the month with the most polluted air and elevated levels of fine particulate matter. No increase is expected in the coming days according to the indicators of the sytem for measuring air cleanness.