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Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

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Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#111

Post by TeMPOraL »

Saline9515 wrote: post #53
inglor_cz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, there is nothing racist about it, neither Poland nor Czechia are really into environmental enforcement against individuals, and you can definitely smell it in winter. As of now, "small sources of pollution" (e.g. mostly individual homes) are at least comparable to industry when it comes to releasing bad stuff into the air. I hate the acrid smell of burning plastic, but no one will do anything about it.

It's the same in Latvia. Riga wants to set up a zero-emissions zone and a toll to enter the city center, but won't ban open stoves or solid fuel burning, which pollutes much more than cars in winter.

Kraków just set up a clean transport zone; it went into full effect just few weeks ago. And people just can't shut up whining about it, even though it doesn't really put much burden on ~anyone. Most people drive petrol-powered cars (usually converted to support LPG, too), and the minimal norms for the clean transport zone are so low, it's hard to find a car that doesn't meet it. You can buy a used petrol-powered car with pocket change and it would already meet the norms.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#112

Post by mixedbit »

dmos62 wrote: post #30
melting_snow wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burning coal and wood wouldn't be that bad. Unfortunately its quite common that people burn their trash

Not sure what your gauge for bad is, but low-temperature burning of coal and wood, which is what you get with cheap wood heaters, produces smoke that is definitely polluting and unhealthy. You can get a wood burner that re-burns well and is very efficient and burns the smoke so completely that you mostly get CO2 and water vapor coming out of the chimney, but they're expensive. Care to share more about trash burning?…

Since 2019 people living in Krakow do not burn any solids for heating, because the city introduced total ban on solid fuels including coal and wood an the ban is quite effective.

But people around the city and, frankly, in most of Poland still burn solid fuels and if you drive around these places the smell can be really terrible and the smoke color and density coming from some chimneys definitely doesn't look like a dry wood smoke. Such smoke is often a product of burning very low quality, super fine-grained coal or rather coal dust, which is the cheapest fuel available.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#113

Post by harmonics »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
praptak wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an interesting coping mechanism (verging on the conspiracy theory) popular on some Polish forums, namely that the abysmal data comes from abundance of sensors combined with them being placed (by whom and why? here's where the conspiracy part kicks in) in the most polluted spots. Here's a debunk by a popular Polish fact checking portal (in Polish): https://demagog.org.pl/analizy_i_raporty/smog-nie-taki-zly-j..…

Until recently, I've been a smog-skeptic; I figured it must be an overblown issue, as regardless of what the digital sensors and pretty graphs say, having spent almost my entire life in Kraków, I never saw it, never felt it. Still don't. Air in Kraków feels perfectly fine to me. And every time I saw someone complain, it was because of "see the PM2.5 PM10 thru the roof omg zomg!", not any actual health-related issues…

My parents were the same until I forced them to install an air purifier, and showed them the filter after running it for one winter (with windows always closed). It was snow white when new, and turned black after four cold months (not grey or dark grey, but literally black).

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#114

Post by Levitz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
praptak wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an interesting coping mechanism (verging on the conspiracy theory) popular on some Polish forums, namely that the abysmal data comes from abundance of sensors combined with them being placed (by whom and why? here's where the conspiracy part kicks in) in the most polluted spots. Here's a debunk by a popular Polish fact checking portal (in Polish): https://demagog.org.pl/analizy_i_raporty/smog-nie-taki-zly-j..…

Until recently, I've been a smog-skeptic; I figured it must be an overblown issue, as regardless of what the digital sensors and pretty graphs say, having spent almost my entire life in Kraków, I never saw it, never felt it. Still don't. Air in Kraków feels perfectly fine to me. And every time I saw someone complain, it was because of "see the PM2.5 PM10 thru the roof omg zomg!", not any actual health-related issues…

I don't mean this in a bad way but, have you visited other countries? I'm Spanish but lived for about half a year in Krakow, and the difference is just so stark I can't imagine skepticism. In winter the air smells burned. Fog is a phenomenon, sure, but what takes place most of winter in Krakow is not fog. It's just smoke.

I didn't know about any of this when I first travelled there, in fact when my boss at the time recommended I got a mask I thought he was paranoid or something. Absolutely not.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#115

Post by rightbyte »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
praptak wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an interesting coping mechanism (verging on the conspiracy theory) popular on some Polish forums, namely that the abysmal data comes from abundance of sensors combined with them being placed (by whom and why? here's where the conspiracy part kicks in) in the most polluted spots. Here's a debunk by a popular Polish fact checking portal (in Polish): https://demagog.org.pl/analizy_i_raporty/smog-nie-taki-zly-j..…

Until recently, I've been a smog-skeptic; I figured it must be an overblown issue, as regardless of what the digital sensors and pretty graphs say, having spent almost my entire life in Kraków, I never saw it, never felt it. Still don't. Air in Kraków feels perfectly fine to me. And every time I saw someone complain, it was because of "see the PM2.5 PM10 thru the roof omg zomg!", not any actual health-related issues…

> I never saw it, never felt it. Still don't.

I got the same condition for diesel fumes since my military service. Thankfully I remember how dizzy I used to get around fumes but I really have to force myself to avoid fumes now even at the faintest smell since I can endure it ... when people around me start complaining I can't even smell it.

I assume you lived there since childhood and got used to it from that time?

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#116

Post by harmonics »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #85
unglaublich wrote: post #34

Fossil fuel heating is _extremely_ polluting, and really costing the population months, up to years of their life. But it's a silent killer, so let's dramatize fantasy nuclear accidents instead.

It depends what you're burning and how you burn it. If you're burning gas, you're burning it either at the perfect fuel/air ratio or maybe just a little lean. You only get water vapour and carbon dioxide out. If you're piling up coal in a stove you're getting all sorts of crap out of the chimney, including radioactive dust. It's one of the reasons that cars have been fitted with catastrophic converters. These remove…

I know developed countries have a very different understanding of the word "clean", but in my city -- which is stuck in the 18th century -- the difference between winter and summer months is extreme. 500-1000 µg/m³ of PM2.5 in winter is the usual deal. 1500-2000 µg/m³ are not unheard of. Yet in summer it's often only 5-10 µg/m³, with spikes of no more than 50 µg/m³ in the evenings due to -- again -- coal burning.

And we have a lot of traffic, regular traffic jams. The average age of a typical car is older than 10 years, according to government data. Most of them are used cars with 100k miles (or more) on them imported from western Europe or the US.

Still, the difference in particulates in summer vs winter is literally hundreds of times.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#117

Post by TeMPOraL »

rightbyte wrote: post #115
TeMPOraL wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until recently, I've been a smog-skeptic; I figured it must be an overblown issue, as regardless of what the digital sensors and pretty graphs say, having spent almost my entire life in Kraków, I never saw it, never felt it. Still don't. Air in Kraków feels perfectly fine to me. And every time I saw someone complain, it was because of "see the PM2.5 PM10 thru the roof omg zomg!", not any actual health-related issues…

> I never saw it, never felt it. Still don't. I got the same condition for diesel fumes since my military service. Thankfully I remember how dizzy I used to get around fumes but I really have to force myself to avoid fumes now even at the faintest smell since I can endure it ... when people around me start complaining I can't even smell it. I assume you lived there since childhood and got used to it from that time?

> I assume you lived there since childhood and got used to it from that time?

Yes. Born and raised in Kraków, spent maybe 5 years living elsewhere in total.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#118

Post by hhjinks »

praptak wrote: post #56
jve wrote: post #44

Woah, most of Poland looks... bad https://www.google.com/maps/place/Krak%C3%B3w,+Poland/@50.47...

There's an interesting coping mechanism (verging on the conspiracy theory) popular on some Polish forums, namely that the abysmal data comes from abundance of sensors combined with them being placed (by whom and why? here's where the conspiracy part kicks in) in the most polluted spots. Here's a debunk by a popular Polish fact checking portal (in Polish): https://demagog.org.pl/analizy_i_raporty/smog-nie-taki-zly-j..…

Well, the map obviously does a lot of extrapolation. Look at Norway, for example. The bigger cities pollute the air in a 50km radius? In a country where heating is primarily electric? When Berlin and Paris don't seem to affect the air quality 20km away, despite having ten times the population?

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#119

Post by inglor_cz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #111
Saline9515 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same in Latvia. Riga wants to set up a zero-emissions zone and a toll to enter the city center, but won't ban open stoves or solid fuel burning, which pollutes much more than cars in winter.

Kraków just set up a clean transport zone; it went into full effect just few weeks ago. And people just can't shut up whining about it, even though it doesn't really put much burden on ~anyone. Most people drive petrol-powered cars (usually converted to support LPG, too), and the minimal norms for the clean transport zone are so low, it's hard to find a car that doesn't meet it. You can buy a used petrol-powered car…

Kraków badly needs a metro network, just like Prague and Warsaw have. That would alleviate the transport pressure a lot.

Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide

#120

Post by harmonics »

Saline9515 wrote: post #45
egorfine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite government incentives and regulations some people burn garbage in stows. It's a local cultural thing and the state seemingly is powerless to do anything about it despite being the 20th economy in the world.

Out of curiosity, why would you burn your trash, and especially plastics? It smells and is clearly unhealthy and the caloric content is worthless compared to wood.

Several garages near my house have people living in them, and they burn anything that burns -- plastic bottles, pieces of used tires, rags soaked in used motor oil. I'm pissed as hell at them, but the country is already poor, and they have even less.

(I'm not from Poland.)

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