European Interest

Burning garbage pollutes Poland

Flickr/Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources/CC BY-ND 2.0

Incinerating rubbish has been banned in Poland for almost two decades, but the practice has not stopped.

“Few people question that we have a problem with smog. We can create the best laws, but if we do not create the right mechanisms to ensure the law is enforced, we will have only dead legislation,” Andrzej Guła of the Polish Smog Alert group said.

As reported by Radio Poland, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in April that his government would make every effort to drive down pollution in a bid to leave a legacy of cleaner air to new generations of Poles.

According to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), 33 of Europe’s 50 most polluted cities are in Poland. The WHO estimates that around 50,000 Poles die every year due to illness caused by air pollution.

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