Copşa Mică is a town in Sibiu County

Sibiu County

Sibiu is a county of Romania, in the historical region Transylvania, with the capital city Sibiu.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 421,724 and the population density was 78/km²....

, Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, located north of Sibiu

Sibiu

Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...

, 33 km east of Blaj

Blaj

Blaj is a city in Alba County, Transylvania, Romania. It has a population of 20,758 inhabitants.The landmark of the city is the fact that it was the principal religious and cultural center of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church in Transylvania....

, and 12 km southwest of Mediaş

Medias

Mediaș is the second largest city in Sibiu County, Transylvania, Romania.-Geographic location:Mediaș is located in the middle basin of Târnava Mare River, at 39 km from Sighișoara and 41 km from Blaj. The health resort Bazna, officially recognized for the first time in 1302, is...

. According to the town's website, its population in 2000 was 5189, down 23% from its population in 1989

History of Romania since 1989

- 1989 revolution :1989 marked the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. A mid-December protest in Timişoara against the eviction of a Hungarian minister grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceauşescu régime, sweeping the dictator from power....

, the year communism collapsed in Romania

Romanian Revolution of 1989

The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...

.

The town is best known for its status (in the 1990s) as one of the most polluted

Air pollution

Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....

 in Europe. This was due to the emissions of two factories in the area:

• One, open from 1936 to 1993, produced carbon black
  Soot
  Soot is a general term that refers to impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of a hydrocarbon. It is more properly restricted to the product of the gas-phase combustion process but is commonly extended to include the residual pyrolyzed fuel particles such as cenospheres,...
  
   for dyes; its emissions permeated the area for nearly sixty years, leaving soot on homes, trees, animals, and everything else in the area. The stain from these decades of deposits are still visible.
• The other source of the pollution, less visible but with even more serious effects to the health of the town's residents, was Sometra, a smelter whose emissions have contributed to significantly higher incidence of lung disease and impotence, along with a life expectancy
  Life expectancy
  Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...
  
   nine years below Romania's average.

Politics

The Copşa Mică City Council (Consiliul Local Copșa Mică), elected in the 2008 local government elections, is made up of 15 councillors, with the following party composition:

	Party	Seats	Current Council
	National Liberal Party National Liberal Party (Romania) The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...	10
	Democratic Liberal Party Democratic Liberal Party (Romania) The Democratic Liberal Party is a populist, centre-right party in Romania. It was formed on 15 December 2007, when the Democratic Party merged with the Liberal Democratic Party. From 2004 to 2007, the Democratic Party was part of the governing Justice and Truth Alliance...	2
	Social Democratic Party Social Democratic Party (Romania) The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. It was formed in 1992, after the post-communist National Salvation Front broke apart. It adopted its present name after a merger with a minor social-democratic party in 2001. Since its formation, it has always...	2
	Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, is the main political organisation representing the ethnic Hungarians of Romania....	1

External links

• Town's official website (in Romanian
  Romanian language
  Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
  
  )
• 1993 project funded by UNIDO
  United Nations Industrial Development Organization
  The United Nations Industrial Development Organization , French/Spanish acronym ONUDI, is a specialized agency in the United Nations system, headquartered in Vienna, Austria...
  
  to assist in the establishment of cleaner production practices at Sometra
• Satellite photos of Copşa Mică in 1986 and 2004
• fragilecologies.com: The People and Pollution of Copsa Mica, Romania
• photo documentary 2010 (Lisa Van Damme)