Copșa Mică Once one of the most polluted town in Europe

Copșa Mică is a town in Sibiu County, Romania, best known in the 1990s for its status of one of the most polluted cites in Europe. This was due to the emissions of two factories in the area:

One, open from 1935 to 1993, produced carbon black for dyes. Its emissions permeated the area for nearly sixty years, leaving soot on homes, trees, animals and everything else in the area. The stain from these decades of deposits are still visible.

The other source of the pollution, less visible but with even more serious effects to the health of the town’s residents, was Sometra, a smelter whose emissions have contributed to significantly higher incidence of lung disease and impotence, along with a life expectancy nine years below Romania’s average.

(Source: wikipedia)

Josef F. Stuefer

Amateur photographer, born in Italy, living in The Netherlands