Vidra, Romania (AP) In the trash-strewn slums of Sintesti, less than 10 miles from Romanias capital, Mihai Bratu scrapes a dangerous living for his Roma family amid the foul reek of burning plastic that cloys the air day and night.
Like many in this community, for him illegally setting fire to whatever he can find that contains metal from computers to tires to electrical cables seems like his only means of survival.
Were selling it to people who buy metal, we are poor people we have to work hard for a week or two to get one kilogram of metal, 34-year-old Bratu, perched on an old wooden cart, told The Associated Press. We are struggling to feed our kids ... The rich people have the villas, look at the rich peoples palaces.
You don't have to look far.
The main road that runs through Sintesti, a largely Roma village in the Vidra commune, is lined with ornate, semi-constructed villas and dotted with shiny SUVs. Behind lurk the parts where Bravu and his young children live, a social black hole with no sanitation or running water. The two worlds are strongly connected.
For Octavian Berceanu, the new head of Romanias National Environmental Guard, the government environmental protection agency, the pollution from the illegal fires that burn here almost ceaselessly was so bad that he started regular raids in the community where he says mafia structures lord it over modern slaves.
This is a kind of slavery, because the people living here have no opportunity for school, to get a job in the city, which is very close, they dont have infrastructure like an official power grid, water, roads and that is destroying their perspective on life, Berceanu told The Associated Press during a police-escorted tour in April.
The slums of Sintesti, like Roma communities elsewhere, have long been ignored by authorities. They're made up of makeshift homes, where unofficially rigged electricity cables hug the ground and run over a sea of trash.
For too many years, they were allowed in some way to do this dirty job," Berceanu said. "Nobody came here in the past.. to see what's happening.
On one day in April during a patrol of the local area, authorities seized a van loaded with 5,000 kilograms of illegal copper, worth as much as 40,000 euros ($48,000). That's just a small cog in the local illegal metal recycling industry and highlights the staggering revenue it can bring to the wealthy homeowners.
But on top of the considerable social ills, according to the environment chief, the fires can significantly hike pollution in Bucharest, potentially by as much as 20-30%, at times pushing air quality to dangerous levels.
The smoke particulates are taken by the wind 10 miles, its like rain over Bucharest and its destroying the quality of the air in the capital. Its one hundred times more dangerous than wood-fire particles there are a lot of toxic components, Berceanu said.
During a late afternoon patrol of Sintesti, AP journalists joined Berceanu and four police officers as they homed in on an acrid cloud of smoke rising above the hotchpotch dwellings. A raucous scene broke out until a hunched-over elderly lady could be persuaded to douse the fire with water exposing the valuable metal remnants.
If the local authorities are not applying the law, of course people whatever their ethnic origin are encouraged to continue doing what they are doing, said Gelu Duminica, a sociologist and executive director of the Impreuna Agency, a Roma-focused non-governmental organization.
Focusing on pollution from the Roma community, Duminica says, instead of on big industry or the more than 1 million cars in the densely populated capital of 2 million, is scapegoating and part of a political branding campaign.
Everywhere in the world, the poorest are exploiting the marginal resources in order to survive. We have a chain of causes: low education, low infrastructure, low development a lot of things are low, Duminica said
The rich Roma are controlling the poor Roma, but the rich Roma are controlled by others. If you look at who is leading and who is controlling things, its more than likely you'll have huge surprises. Lets not treat it as an ethnic issue," he said.
In the future, the environment chief hopes surveillance drones with pollution sensors and infrared cameras can help paint a clearer picture of how the networks operate.
Were working against organized crime and its very hard, he said. If we solve this problem here, very close to Bucharest, we can solve any kind of problem similar to this all around the country.
For local resident Floria, who refused to give a surname but said she was 40-something, a lack of official documents, education, and options leave her and her community with no alternatives.
We dont want to do this. Why dont they give us jobs like (communist dictator Nicolae) Ceausescu used to, they would come with buses, with cars, and take us to town to work, she told The Associated Press. Gypsies are seen as the worst people no matter where we go or what we do.
Mihai Bratu blames local authorities for the plight of his community, for the lack of roads, the lack of action.
The mayor doesnt help us! he exclaims, as a small boy shifts building materials from Bratu's horse cart to the muddy yard next door.
What do we have? What can we have? Some little house? whatever God granted us.
