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Copenhagen’s buses to clean up their act

Christian Wenande
September 18th, 2015


This article is more than 9 years old.

Almost 300 buses on the city’s busiest routes to get cleaning system

People hopping on Copenhagen’s buses can begin to do so with a cleaner conscience in the near future.

The city’s Movia buses are scheduled to be given cleaning systems that will remove 95 percent of the pollutants from the bus emissions. The environment and food minister, Eva Kjer Hansen, will mount the first system on a 6A bus today.

“It’s good that we’ll remove 95 percent of the air pollution from the buses,” said Hansen.

“It’s an initiative that works and follows up on the efforts to reduce the pollution from wood-burning stoves and maritime shipping in order to make the capital and the rest of Denmark even cleaner.”

READ MORE: Busiest CPH bus line to become CO2-neutral

288 buses involved
All of the city buses that drive on the most polluted stretches of road in the capital will have the cleaning systems mounted by March 2016.

Of the 84 million kroner set aside to install the cleaning systems, 74 million comes from the Environment and Food Ministry, 9 million from Copenhagen Municipality and 1 million from Frederiksberg Municipality.

“By installing the cleaning systems on 288 buses, we can reduce air pollution in Copenhagen with what is the equivalent of emissions from 15-20 percent of the most polluting cars and vans,” said the city mayor, Frank Jensen. “That will have an impact.”


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”