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Hungary Environmental Problems
Rapid industrialization and the priority of plan
fulfillment
over environmental concerns have produced serious air and
water
pollution problems in Hungary. In the late 1980s, about 38
percent of Hungary's population lived in regions where air
pollution exceeds international standards. Electric plants
burning high-sulfur coal and automobiles emitted most of
the
pollutants that fouled Hungary's air. The country's
sulfurdioxide emissions in 1984 totaled 1.8 million tons, an
average of
17.6 kilograms per hectare. Prevailing winds from the west
and
southwest carried 70 percent of Hungary's sulfur-dioxide
emissions into neighboring countries, but acid rain had
damaged
25 to 30 percent of the country's forests. Government
efforts had
succeeded in reducing dust pollution.
Pollutants also fouled the rivers and ground water. The
Tisza, Danube, Szamos, Sajo, and Zagyva were Hungary's
most
polluted rivers, and the water supplies of 773 towns and
villages
were not fit for human consumption. In 1970 Hungary
emitted 1.5
million cubic meters of polluted water per day. Industrial
waste
from chemical, rubber, iron, paper, and food-processing
industries accounted for 70 percent of the effluent, of
which
only 27 percent was treated. Only 46 percent of Hungary's
population had an adequate sewage system.
In the 1980s, Hungary annually produced 5 million tons
of
hazardous waste, and it reportedly imported hazardous
waste from
Austria, Switzerland, and the Federal Republic of Germany
(West
Germany) in return for hard currency. After three years of
public
protest, in the late 1980s Hungary began constructing an
incinerator in Dorog capable of burning about 25,000 tons
of
hazardous waste per year. Hungary operated a nuclear-waste
dump
between the villages of Kisnemedi and Puspokszilagy, but
precise
information on the disposal of radioactive waste from the
country's nuclear power plant was unavailable.
Hungary signed the United Nations Convention on
Long-Range
Transboundary Air Pollution in 1979 and the Helsinki
protocol on
sulfur-dioxide emissions in 1985. In 1987 and 1988, the
government passed new pollution regulations and obtained
loans
from the
World Bank (see Glossary) to improve pollution
control.
Hungary had antipollution agreements with Czechoslovakia
and
Austria but had no such agreement with Romania and
complained
about Romania's chronic discharge of phenol, oil, and
other
pollutants into the Tisza and smaller rivers.
Data as of September 1989
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