Green public transport promoted
Senior government officials took part yesterday in events aimed at getting Athenians onto public transport in a bid to promote environmentally friendlier travel habits on World Environment Day. Transport Minister Michalis Liapis attended an event organized to promote the tram, which is expected to reach the southern Athens area of Voula by September. The tram currently ends in nearby Glyfada. «We must all limit the unimportant trips we make in our cars,» he said. Some 60,000 commuters use the tram every day, according to Liapis. Greece has a dismal environmental record: There are some 1,150 illegal landfills across the country with an estimated 10,000 smaller dumping grounds, sites that not only contaminate the environment but also pose a serious fire risk in the hotter summer months. On Monday the government unveiled a new composting plant that will process 50 percent of waste from the city’s only legal landfill in Ano Liosia, northwest Athens. It took 10 years to get the plant going after plans for the project began in 1997. Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis yesterday visited the recently built Kerameikos metro station on the underground train’s new western line. An environmental group said yesterday that Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is setting a poor example for the country due to the pollution caused by his 60-kilometer round trip to and from work every day. «Our prime minister and his family live in the suburb of Rafina and he carries out his duties in the center of Athens, which means he commutes around 60 kilometers every day for work,» said the Green Ecologist group. Based on estimates that Karamanlis’s escort includes at least two armored limousines and three police motorcycles, the entire convoy discharges at least 9 tons of carbon dioxide every year, it said. «In comparison, the annual allotment of CO2 emissions to each of the Earth’s inhabitants to avoid destructive consequences is 3 tons,» the group said.
