The former head of the Environmental Guard, reproaches to Diana Buzoianu because of the pollution in the Sintești area. “How to beat the mob if it turns out a village?”
Octavian Berceanu, former general commissioner of the National Environmental Guard, published on Wednesday, May 6, an open letter addressed to the Minister of the Environment, Diana Buzoianu, whom he accuses of failing to stop the illegal burning of waste in the Sintești area, a town south of Bucharest.
Pollution in Sintești area PHOTO: Facebook/Octavian Berceanu
Octavian Berceanu, former head of the Environmental Guard, says that hundreds of thousands of people in the south of the Capital breathe polluted air from the fires caused by the burning of cables and other waste. He asks the minister to personally go to the area to see the reality “beyond the numbers” presented by the Environmental Guard.
“I am asking you, on behalf of half a million Bucharest residents who live in the south of the Capital, to make one last working visit to Sintești and see what is hidden behind the village and behind the numbers that the National Environmental Guard is boasting about”, the former head of the institution wrote on Facebook.
Berceanu describes the situation in Sintești as a sanitary and social drama, insisting on the children who live near the waste fires.
He claims that minors are forced to guard places where cables are burned and inhale toxic fumes on a daily basis: “Those children forced to sit several times a day near cable fires have no fault to be sentenced to death. An adult would stay in bed sick for three days after 30 minutes of inhaling the extremely toxic smoke from the cables.”
Drama from 15 km from the Government of Romania
“Perhaps you will feel why the dozens of children from Sintești and the thousands of children in the country, smoked by waste fires and without running water, will never be received in a school and have the fate of war refugees even if they are 15 km from the Government of Romania”Berceanu sent to Diana Buzoianu, asking her to go to the field to see the situation.
Berceanu reproaches the Minister of the Environment for not being able to stop the networks involved in the illegal burning of waste and says that the problem persists, despite controls and legislative changes in recent years.
“Reform starts from within, from within everyone! It also applies to the Ministry of the Environment. How to defeat the mafia if a village will prove it?”wrote the former head of the Environmental Guard.
He claims that, during the time he was in charge of the Environmental Guard, the institution's teams frequently went to Sintești to stop fires caused by the burning of waste.
The Sintești area and the localities in the south of Bucharest have been associated in recent years with numerous episodes of pollution caused by the illegal burning of waste, especially for the recovery of metals from electrical cables. The issue has generated repeated controversies between the authorities, environmental activists and residents of the area.
