Athens: pollution capital of Europe

Press, 12 October 1988, Page 19

Athens: pollution capital of Europe

When

COLIN SMITH,

of “The Observer,”

arrived in Greece recently, the Athens taxis were on strike. They were protesting against the latest anti-pollution measures, which ban half of them from the city centre.

Private cars in Athens have been restricted by anti-pollution measures since 1984. They must comply with a system that works on the last digit of a vehicle’s registration number. There are odd-numbered days and even-numbered days, and heavy fines for those who can’t count.

Over the last 20 years, Athens has become the most polluted city in Europe. Professor Dimitrios Trichopolos, a Harvard man who teaches epidemiology at the university there, says it is conceivable that pollution was a factor in the deaths of at least a sixth of the 2000 who died in last summer’s heat wave, which lasted 10 days and was more frightening than the spring’s war scare with Turkey. That had people emptying the supermarkets.

What amazed many people was the fact that most of the casualties were not visiting northern Europeans. They were elderly Greeks whose bodies had been trying to cope with Nefos poisoning for the last two decades. '

Nefos means “cloud,” and it is what Athenians call the filth they have to breathe for most of the year. On bad days, even the Adonises of the beaches end up at their doctors complaining of

blinding headaches, stinging eyes, sore throats, nausea and shivering.

Acid rain is so bad that even the city’s most potent symbol has been hit. Sadly, the Acropolis is not above the smog belt, and it is wearing away almost as fast as the lungs of a people who make a personal contribution to Nefos by being the world’s heaviest smokers. Cypriots are the second. About four million Greeks, more than 40 per cent of the entire population, live in Athens. That is its main problem because the city was never intended for more than half a million. The hollow that is the Attica basin is one dreary forest of concrete blocks.

There is hardly an olive grove between the port of Piraeus, now officially part of Greater Athens, and the Hotel Grande Bretagne in Constitution Square. Austerity measures introduced by the Government two years

ago have meant that most people can’t afford to replace cars which fume more with age. Professor Trichopolos, the driver of a 15-year-old Mercedes, estimates that between 60 to 80 per cent of Nefos is created by traffic.

There are two kinds of smog. One is the London type, named after the stuff which choked Britain in the early 19505. The other is the Los Angeles type, which is heavy in nitrogen oxides and requires a decent dose of sunshine to start up photo-chemi-cal reactions. Athens suffers from the latter. Elizabeth Taylor, a movie star who has not suffered visibly from the Los Angeles type over the years, came to Athens recently to collect a shared award from the Onassis Foundation for her charity worked for A.I.D.S. patients. Almost as many column inches were devoted to how many hours it took her to put on her face as

there were to important local issues.

Only at a press conference at the Grande Bretagne was there a hint of lese majeste. Someone asked how much Miss Taylor’s beauty owed to modern medicine. Everyone knows that she is nearer 60 than 50, and can look 35 on a good day. “Whaddya mean?” said the star’s incredulous press adviser, a New York woman. “I don’t understand. How — much — has — modern — medicine — contributed to Miss — Taylor’s — booty (sic)?” The words came back like a quiverful of flaming arrows. Miss Taylor cocked her head to one side and smiled and smiled.

The questioner looked as if she wished she was in West Beirut. Eventually, it was agreed that what she really meant was, “To what do you owe your beauty. „ “Clean and healthy living, said Miss Taylor, who has given up drink and drugs in a big way, with a grin. She left town the next day, missing a reception the American ambassador had laid on for prize-winners. It was 30 years since her last visit to Athens. Perhaps somebody had told her about the Nefos.