Bucharest Prefecture analyses request of declaring state of alert in Sector 1 on waste issue

The Bucharest Prefect, Alin Stoica, announced on Thursday that he is analyzing the request of mayor Clotilde Armand in regards to declaring a state of alert in the capital's Sector 1 based on waste not being picked up, and will announce the decision by the end of the day. "At this moment we are still analyzing, I just had a talk with the Environment Protection Agency (APM) and representatives of Sector 1 on this situation, we have an image of the situation, there are approximately 2,600 tons of uncontrolled waste on the radius of Sector 1, from the estimates made by Sector 1. The main danger that could be from construction waste - dust emissions which will potentially jeopardize the people's health. The management of this waste falls under the responsibility of both players, namely the local public authority and the company that has the public sanitation service delegated. There is also a component that makes the citizens responsible, from what I understand, the trash picking up being free of charge for many years, there is an induced behavior of the citizens who abandoned waste on the radius of Sector 1, because until now the waste was being picked up for free, yet there, from now on these matters need to be managed differently," Stoica declared. He specified that some citizens abandon construction waste, since they refuse to pay for their being picked up. "We had discussions with the Local Police of Sector 1. I understand that checks are being made everyday and there are many fines issued in this sense," Alin Stoica added.AGERPRES(RO - author: Iulia Carciog, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Catalin Cristian Trandafir, editor: Maria Voican)