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The Environment Of Belgium has been heavily Polluted on all Area s ( Water , Air , Soil , Noise , and Biodiversity ). In the Environment Report 2006 , Belgium has been given the last places in all of these areas. In other Documents things are not much better -if not worse-. An introduction: AIR In Flanders , until recently, there was an estimated 13,500 mortalities each year due to air pollution (alone). However through researcher Vincent Du Four of the University Of Ghent , we now know that this number is Wrong . There are at least 140,000 Mortalities when we consider only the Organic Pollutants , thus without other agents such as Heavy Metal s. 33% of this is caused by Road Traffic , the rest is made up by Heavy Industry , House Heatening , Vapourising Manure , Solvents in Paint , ... It has also been reported that the Air , because of the pollution is highly Carcinogenic . Besides this, one should not expect that the degree of air pollution is better in some part of the country. According to Vincent Du Four's research, the air pollution in the entire country of Belgium is very severe. Some places, are even as polluted as industrial cities in the Ruhr Area , such as Olen . Air pollution agents The biggest share in this is nitrogen dioxide (NO&2), carbon dioxide (CO&2), formaldehide, benzeene, and some 'minor' pollutants as Ozone , Fine Particles , ??? !! The above agents still need description !! Fine dust Each year a quantity of 17,000 tons of fine dust (of which 65% is pollution by Soil Degradation together with some herbicides and pesticides) is blown into the air. This amount makes up around 20% of the global (air) pollution in Belgium. The other 80% comes from Neighbouring Countries . Due to new research by the University of G(h)ent, there are 14,000 per million mortalities. And, since Belgium houses around 11 million people, this would result in 154.000 mortalities for Fine Dust (!) alone in Belgium. Depending off course on the winddirection the number of fine dust changes allot. But one can roughly say that there is about 20 to 30 micrograms per cubic metre (mg/m³). Lastly, to show how bad it really is, here are some examples:
WATER 79% of the Surface Water is heavily polluted, another 19% is 'less' polluted, and 2 percent makes the European standard. This is partly because most of the polluted sewer water is not actively purified, only the rain water is, (witch is mostly already clean). VMM and Aquafin , 2 government supported organistations will try to improve this in the near future by doubling the water purificaction facilities. So opposed to 228, there will be around 400 facilities. Of course the Real Problem lies with taking up too much rain water in the Sewers , witch will keep work on for years to come. Very few fish have been reported in the rivers, and bading in the rivers is mere hazardous. Not only the rivers, but the shores are polluted also (1% of the baders got ill in 2004) And lastly, the fish that do swim in the rivers and shores have dangerous levels of Pcb 's in their bodies. Water pollution agents Groundwater is mainly polluted by Nitrate and Pesticides , while the rivers suffer from domestic wastewater, that is still untreated in some belgian cities. Industrial wastewater also contributes and leaves the Escaut totally damaged in belgium. According to the quality norms, the most frequent excesses are from cadmium, chrome, mercury, lead, cyanide, detergents and different pesticides. SOIL The statistics are just being started and already are 16,653 parcels filed as heavily polluted. By the end of 2007 more data will be available (30% will be charted). !someone search and post already available statistics, please ! NOISE 33% of all flemish people have troubles with the Level of Noise in Flanders during the day. At night, 42% of the flemish people have troubles with it. The level of noise is probably above 42 Decibels and can thus contribute to increased bloodpressure, heartproblems, depression, migraine and other according to the WHO . Most of the sound comes from Road Traffic . Although not such an important factor for the environment as the other (soil, water and air), noise levels can annoy birds, and other animal species and thus descreasing biodiversity. BIODIVERSITY Very, very bad. In the environment report 2006 Belgium has been given practically the last place of all the countries in the world. THE UNSAID There is still somewhat of a Taboo on the subject in Belgium. Environmental Awareness is very low in Belgium, witch could be (partly) due to the fact that although environmental actions (such as by the VMM) have been precisely covered in the Media , in depth' Information about the Global environmental Situation is never available by that very same Media . For example: tax benefits on "clean" or better said less-polluting cars are precisely covered, while Global Air Quality (and comparisations between Belgium and -say- France ) are not covered by the media. EXTERNAL LINKS
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