According to a report released by the European Environment Agency, Germany and Poland were singled out as the biggest industrial polluters in the European Union.

Britain, France, Italy, Romania and Spain followed in the list. The study is based on 2009 data findings that included carbon dioxide emissions.

Ms Jaqueline McGlade director of EEA said in a statement that "Approximately a fifth of the cost of industrial air pollution in Europe comes from facilities in Germany, the highest proportion of any country in the EU."

The EEA indicated that however, if the EU's biggest industrial polluters were ranked taking into account the size of their economy, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic would come out on top.

The agency said it calculated that damage costs from the pollution spewing out of the EU's 10,000 largest industrial facilities amounted to between EUR 102 billion and EUR 169 billion. Most of the pollution was caused by large power plants, and, to a lesser extent, refineries and steelworks.

(Sourced from www.nineoclock.ro)