Vilniaus Naujininkų Secondary School

Presents

International Project

Turning Our Blue Planet Green

Partnership Countries

LithuaniaNaujininkų Secondary School is very active in taking care of environment, spreading ecologic lifestyle, participating in green projects. Pupils’

work in this sphere had been valued and only our school from all Vilnius has got the Green Flag.

Forests

The stork is a Lithuanian national bird

There are about 18 000 forests in Lithuania. Nine massive areas cover more than 20 000 ha. Forest areas often have their own names ( often by surrounding villages, lakes or rivers.)

Most often met Lithuanian forests are the following: pinewood (~ 38%), birch (22 %), fir-tree, oak tree forests.

The majority of bigger wild animals live in Lithuania’s forests. The habitat of endangered animals and birds is located in protected areas in the forests which are full of plants listed in the RED BOOK.

We save Lithuania’s forests, but sometimes the nature makes surprises to us. The recent storm in Lithuania has desolated more than 250 000 km. of wood. Only in Lithuanian southeast region forests of 30 km in width and 50 km in lenght have been destroyed. The loss is over17 mln Lt.

Pupils of Naujininkų Secondary School visited the forests which had been destroyed.

Water

Water Resources in Lithuania

During one year 4075 mln.m3 water flows into Lithuania’s territory and 450 mln.m3 of this water is polluted.

By the standards finable water makes up 25,4 %, insufficiently well finable - 46,9 %, dirty water – 27,6 %.

The water of the Nevėžis river is very strongly polluted.

Mostly the surface of the water is polluted by heavy metals in Kaunas, Šiauliai and Panevėžys regions. Most wells of these districts are polluted by copper and zinc ionics.

The water of rivers is usually of a

yellowish or grey color and very often it is even colourless. Water in strongly polluted streams is grey or even black, and sometimes it is even white .

Rivers are polluted by home and industrial effluent .

For some Lithuania’s neighbours it’s not important to keep water clean and don’t care of it, so most garbage is poured to rivers, and all this polluted water comes to Lithuania.

Mostly polluted water

• Drūkšiai lake • Nemunas

How is it polluted

• IMGP7685.JPG

Air

The main air pollution sources in Lithuania are the following: thermal power plants and boiler houses, industry, transport. Over the last year the pollution of air has visibly decreased from energy and industry, however, vehicle pollution has not changed, even has become dominating . By the way, relatively a lot of carbon dioxide accumulates in the cities. While economic is increasing, the amount of exhaust gas is rising.

In Lithuania air pollution is medium. The concentration of pollutants break norms rarely and if this happens it is only in the cities. In our country vehicles and energy recourses had been changed, that‘s why load of air has fallen into decline.

Air quality in Lithuania also depends on polluted air which comes from the countries in the neighbourhood. In that case Lithuania’s geographical position is not very good. We are in a crossroad of polluted air mass. Dominating southwest wind blows Europe’s foul air to us .

The results of chemical substances getting into the environment:

• Ozone layer.• Smog. In the biggest cities of Lithuania the main

air pollutants are industrial districts and traffic. Smog occurs only in Vilnius.

• Green house effect.• The illness caused by pollution. Statistics in

Lithuania is not very optimistic-in Vilnius birth defects happens 4x more, premature births 2x more, tumours 1,5x more.

Although air pollution in Lithuania is restricted we won’t make it disappear unless renewable source is used more effeciant.

The most polluted regions in Lithuania

Vilnius

JovanaMažeikiai

Kėdainiai

Contaminating regions in Lithuania

It’s the capital of Lithuania. Vilnius is the centre of factories, traffic, and industry.

The factory of fertilizers “Lifosa”.

Kėdainiai

MažeikiaiThe only operating petroleum refining company in the Baltic states.

JonavaThe factory of fertilizers and chemical products“Achema”

Ignalina

Former nuclear power plant.

Recycling

• GlassIn our country comparing recycling potential and

glass waste there aren’t enough opportunities to deal with recycling amount.

• PaperIn Lithuania only 24 % of paper is used

repeatedly. Lithuania has lots of possibilities to recycle paper and carton. If we put together all the carton factories we would be able to recycle about 40thousand tons of paper waste during the year. But unfortunately in Lithuania there is collected only 25 % of this amount and the rest part is exported.

• MetalCollecting of metal into containers had been

stopped because there was little waste of it in Lithuania.

• PlasticIn Lithuania over 50 thousand tones of plastic

waste are being collected during one year. The companies which collect and crush the pokes export them abroad where the recycling is being finished.

During 2007 every Lithuanian citizen used 401 kg of communal waste out of

which only 23kg could be recycled.

Fertilizers

In the world the most using fertilizers ( about 60percent )are nitrogen fertilizers.In Lithuania farmers usually still use natural fertilizers like manure.Only 20 percent of fertilize is being left in our country, because the other part is being exported. For example comparing prices of ammonium nitrate in Lithuania and France the difference is about 30-40 euroes.There are two big factories of fertilizers in Lithuania: Lifosa and Achema.

PCB

Since the 1980s-1990s PCB was banned to use in constructions in Lithuania as it was recognised to be a lasting pollutant.

Thank You for your

attention