With symbolic placing of white flag with the inscription “Healthy air in a healthy body ” in front of the elementary school “Fatima Gunic”, yesterday was marked the start of the process of controlling and monitoring of the degree of contamination in Canton Sarajevo in this way as well.
This followed after the Prime Minister of CS, Elmedin Konakovic, and the Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Pier Carlo Sandei, in the presence of Ministers of Education, Science and Youth and Physical Planning, Construction and Environmental Protection Elvir Kazazovic and Cedomir Lukic, signed a letter of intent that is aimed at improving the quality of air in Canton Sarajevo.
“This is one way to influence the raising of awareness of our children about the harmful effects that air pollution has on human health and environment,” said Prime Minister Konakovic and added that this is just one of the activities that the Government of CS is carrying out in order to solve this very important problem.
It is planned that the white canvas, or flags, are set in front of every primary school in Canton Sarajevo on visible place where it needs to stay at least 3 months after which they will serve as a symbolic indicator of air pollution.
“We will distribute flags in all 75 elementary schools, where unfortunately, after the winter, we will have dirty flags instead of white ones, and thus will see the true level of pollution of Sarajevo in a practical example,” explained Sandei.
He said that the mountains that are surrounding Sarajevo undoubtedly contribute to its beauty, but also represent a barrier, since they are preventing air regulation in the city.
“This is why we cannot wait for the nature to take care of the cleanliness of the air by itself. That’s what we need to do by more frequent use of public transportation, because it is very important that we are aware that any harmful air we breathe is threatening to our health,” stated Sandei.
Elementary school “Fatima Gunic” was selected as the first to participate in this project, since they completed the process of warming the building 60 days ago, which, according to director Hajrudin Cuprija, will reduce energy consumption and thus will significantly influence on the environmental pollution.
“This is just one in the series of activities that the relevant ministry is carrying out with the aim to reduce pollution in Canton Sarajevo. This past winter was very difficult and we hope it will not happen again,” said minister Lukic and explained that Sarajevo has a problem with pollution of air due to particulate matter throughout the year, which is the reason why the Action plan for reducing particulate matter in the air was adopted, whose application should reduce the emissions by 50 %.
(Source: Radiosarajevo.ba)
