Janusz Korzen

"We also established an Eco Club. Professor Tadeusz Borys was the main driver behind the Kontra project. At the time, 26 or 27 environmentally endangered areas were identified in Poland, including the Jelenia Góra area, which was mostly affected by the very harmful emissions from Celwiskoza. If we add the sulphur coming in from the west to the Celwiskoza emissions in an often unventilated basin, you can imagine what it did. It was a matter of doing away with Celwiskoza, and Tadeusz Borys eventually did it, although the process took years. Celwiskoza employed about three [thousand] or more people, so it [supported] the same number of families, which made it a huge social problem and, at the same time, a somewhat different issue. See, this cellulose-based viscose was used for cotton wool used for bandages for basically the whole Warsaw Pact, so it was not so easy to close down. Five or six volumes analysing the economic/environmental balance were written - the gain, the loss and so on and so forth. Out of that came the absolute certainty that the damage outweighed the benefits."

"When I arrived, I immediately saw the condition the forests wre in. You know, it's just unimaginable. For example, we drove from Szklarska Poręba to Świeradów and there was a dead forest along the road, not a single bird in it, no mushrooms, nothing. On the ridge of the Jizera Mountains there were basically just tree stumps, extracted en masse and stacked along the asphalt roads. Today, these forests have been restored, the chief pests have disappeared and highly efficient filters have been installed, whether in Turoszów or in German or Czech power plants. The world has changed. But for me, it was the first school in terms of serious planning, and I was lucky to be able to do the work."