Bucharest City Hall wants to implement new programs that would focus on two of the city’s problems: air pollution and waste collection.

Thus, the City Hall is to implement in the coming period an operational system for air quality management via which the authorities will know in real time the concentration levels of air pollutants, and will thus be able to issue notifications/alarms for the population.

“It’s not enough to admit that there is pollution in Bucharest. It is the local authorities’ duty to continuously monitor the level of pollutants in the city, not only as a way to stay informed, but also to be able to take the appropriate action,” said mayor Gabriela Firea.

The system will be made of 25 fixed monitoring stations that will be placed in areas with heavy traffic, industrial areas, parks and recreation areas, schools, and hospitals, as well as nine mobile stations that will mainly be located near construction sites, 20 indicative measurement equipment placed on the means of public transportation that will monitor the level of pollutants in traffic, and a system that will transmit and storage the data, the related software, and street display panels.

The City Hall also wants to make a change in the system of selective waste collection, as garbage is also an important source of pollution in Bucharest.

“At present, 95% of the 272 kg of annual municipal waste per capita is stored at landfills, and only 5% is recycled. This year, according to EU directives, we’ll have to triple the percentage of recycled waste (15%), otherwise we’ll have to pay high penalties. The objective for 2020 is to achieve a share of 50% for recycling,” said the mayor.

Thus, the City Hall will “soon” start a program on selective waste collection. Under this program, a total of 50 waste collection points will be installed in Bucharest, some of them fully automated. Part of these collection points will be served by operators, which will take the sorted waste from citizens, and in return offer them cash incentives or vouchers for discounts at major retailers.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com