Bucharest receives not-so-flattering review due to cases of non-existent sewerage and water supply

Newsroom 28/06/2011 | 15:52

According to an article from verticalnews.com, quoted by tourism-review.com, Bucharest has been proclaimed “the ugliest capital in Europe”, mostly on account of its “damaged roads, piles of garbage on the main streets, irregular supply of hot water or in some cases non-existent sewerage and water supply.”

As the article continues, “there is no sewerage, running water or asphalt roads in some parts of the Romanian capital which makes it seem like a city from the Middle Ages. Some houses do have running water but they do not have sewerage. People would like to take a bath but after that they would have to carry buckets of the used water to the nearest sewer. The solution is to wash only in a wash basin.”

Moreover, it seems that the quality of life in Bucharest is getting worse: “in 2001, it was 84th on a list of a consulting company Mercer and it has fallen to 108th position in 2009 getting to the last but one city in the EU, last one being Sofia. The company assessed 39 indicators including crime levels, pollution, access to drinking water, sewerage, electricity, public transport and so on.”

Pollution is also a major issues for the Romanian capital city: “the assessment of pollution in the capital was also taken into consideration. A study by a NGO Ecopolis was monitoring the quality of air in Bucharest and its implications for human health for six years. According to the 2010 results of the monitoring, all the research stations in the city have recorded higher levels of pollution. Some dust levels were exceeding the limits set for health security.

The are also solution to Bucharest’s situation proposed in the article: “one of the solutions would be to plant trees which absorb the dust. There are too few green areas in the city. There were 16.38 square meters of green areas per person in 2008. EU norms require at least 26 square meters and the WHO even recommends 50 square meters.”