Pollution: Europe still in the red
Audio 19:30
Production facilities of pharmaceutical contract manufacturer Lonza Group AG, producer of coronavirus vaccines in Visp, Valais, Switzerland.
Education Images / Universal Image - Education Images
By: Juliette Rengeval Follow
23 mins
Air, noise and chemical pollution are responsible for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year in Europe, according to the European Environment Agency.
Even if the European Commission recently adopted its European action plan entitled "Towards zero pollution in air, water and soil", pollution remains a major problem in the European area, as well as outside.
Publicity
Caceres, in southwestern
Spain
, is home to what could be the second largest lithium deposit for all of Europe.
This whets the appetites of industrialists: a mine project is under study, but it is located near a natural and historic area, which is the subject of debate.
Diane Cambon.
Since the start of the pandemic, Lonza, a Swiss chemical group, has been responsible for manufacturing Moderna's vaccine for Europe. A boon for the canton of Valais and the city of Visp, where Lonza employs nearly 4,000 people out of a population of 10,000. But a godsend that hides a heavy environmental liability. Before the pandemic, Lonza's name was mainly associated with the most serious mercury pollution in
Switzerland
.
Jérémie Lanche.
In
Turkey
, a group of village women from the shores of the Black Sea is trying to save their valley. Since April 21, 2021, the workers of a holding company have been working in a stone quarry intended to provide the raw material for a future logistics port ... The opponents refuse to leave the area despite the massive presence of the security forces. In Istanbul,
Anne Andlauer
.
The wall Alyssum is a nickel eater.
This plant with yellow flowers, found in the Balkans, extracts heavy metals from polluted soils.
For a long time, the inhabitants of the region tore it up, but in recent years, they have been cultivating it in
Albania
, thanks to a collaboration between the NGOs AEEMC (Center for Economic and
Agro-Environmental
Management
) of Tirana and Nancy.
The results are promising: on one hectare, Alyssum can harvest nearly 200 kg of nickel.
Louis Seiller.
Sandormokh, the horrors of the twentieth century
Sandormokh is the name of a 1930s mass grave discovered barely 25 years ago in a Karelian forest near Finland.
The activists of the Memorial organization found there the remains of victims of the Great Stalinist Terror, shot in the greatest secrecy.
Irina Flige, who heads the Petersburg branch of the NGO, played a central role in the discovery of this mass grave.
She has dedicated a book to him, the French translation of which has just been published by Éditions des Belles Lettres.
Etienne Bouche.
(Replay of May 17, 2021).
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Spain
Swiss
Turkey
Albania
Environment
On the same subject
Russia: oil spill causes significant pollution in the Komi Republic
Germany strengthens its commitments in the fight against global warming
Great report
The city of Caceres threatened by lithium