The ecological tree, placed in the form of a billboard in the center of Tetovo, has for several years testified to the neglect of the city authorities for ecology, but also to the lack of environmental awareness of the citizens.

The "tree" that aims to purify the air in the city, that is, to absorb harmful PM particles, has been almost completely destroyed. The seedlings are no longer there, and the structure has been demolished.

"Here in Tetovo, whatever is set up in the interest of the city and its citizens is destroyed. This is for us, for our air that we breathe every day and someone dared to destroy it in the center of the city. This has been damaged for quite some time since it was installed. The city authorities didn't even maintain it, it was supposed to be watered, but it dried up", says a resident of Tetovo.

The ecological tree was installed in 2017, but within a few months, on several occasions, a large part of the saplings were uprooted and stolen by unscrupulous citizens, and the rest dried up.

The eco tree worth 250.000 euros was installed by Eco Awareness, through a donation from Germany and several domestic companies.

The Municipality of Tetovo says that they are in contact with the ecological association, so that the tree can be serviced and "revived" again.

"The eco tree was installed through Eco Awareness. I am in communication with them, let's see if it can be serviced and put back into use, because it is unfortunate that it fails, it clears the air and it was paid quite dearly, he pointed out Tomislav Jorgushevski from the Municipal Inspectorate for Ecology.

The green billboard called City Tree is a vertical construction made of moss, it is 4 meters high, 3 meters wide and 60 centimeters deep. Through the moss of the tree planted in the seedlings, the air is cleared, that is, the moss absorbs the harmful particles from the air. The eco tree it has the effect of 275 planted trees, and can offset the pollution of 417 cars. These green billboards have already been placed in major cities around the world such as Berlin, Dresden, Paris, Oslo, Hong Kong.

And while waiting for activities for the eco tree to "come to life", in practice no activities are seen to reduce air pollution, which is already starting to exceed the permitted limits, and the concentration of "PM 10" particles will be even higher with the arrival of winter.

From the Municipal Inspectorate, they say that they carry out controls, but in the last few months they have not issued any fines. They are in talks with private companies to set up more mobile stations in the city, all in order to get a more realistic picture of which part of the city has the highest air pollution.

"Now we have started with strengthened controls, now it's the turn of the factories where furniture is made." In the past period, there were no fines for air pollution. These are our regular controls. First of all, we control the reports, whether there are any changes in the plants, if something is suspicious, we give them orders to carry out air quality measurements. There is a project for setting up mobile stations, which would be good to set up in several locations around the city. . That way we would have a real picture of air pollution, in that area where it is the most polluted, there we as an inspectorate would strengthen the controls", said Tomislav Jorgushevski from the Municipal Inspectorate for Ecology.

Otherwise, almost every winter, on certain days, Tetovo is at the top along with the most polluted cities in the world, with PM 10 particles that are 15 times higher than the permitted limits.

But serious steps are not taken on the ground for the sources of air pollution. The traffic chaos is still present, the high-rise buildings that obstruct the normal air circulation are still being built on a large scale, and hygiene is at a very low level.