Environment commissioner calls for abandoned cars to be scrapped

Hundreds of vehicles abandoned around the countryside are sources of pollution, the environment commissioner said on Friday, suggesting they should be collected and taken to licenses scrap yards.

In a letter to Agriculture Minister Nicos Kouyiallis, Ioanna Panayiotou said hundreds of old vehicles were dumped around the countryside, in illegal garbage dumps, creeks, fields, etc.

Panayiotou suggested resolving the problem by local authorities recording the number of vehicles and affording them a special fund to collect them and hand them over to licensed scrap yards.

The commissioner said that apart from cleaning the countryside, scrapping all the abandoned vehicles and the state’s obsolete equipment would mean revenues and may create some temporary jobs at a local level.