Pollution Alert in Smog-Bound Skopje

Skopje | Photo by: Balkan Insight

Residents of the Macedonian capital are being advised to stay at home and reduce their activities as a result of severe air pollution.

On Monday, pollution levels in Skopje reached 360 index points. According to the European air quality standards this is seven times higher than the normal level.

When the index exceeds 300, the authorities are obliged to declare a health warning for the population.

The mayor of Skopje, Koce Trajanovski, said there is not much that city hall can do. “The pollution is not only in the city centre, it’s all over,” he said, arguing that restricting traffic in the centre won’t do much. He says the law needs to be changed, tightening controls on polluters.

“I am the first mayor who introduced pollution monitoring of the city so I am not running away from the problem [but] it is not in our jurisdiction,” Trajanovski said.

Particularly worrying is the amount of so-called particulate matter in the air composed of dust, pollen, soot and smoke. With 513,50 micro grams per square meter registered on Monday this is ten times higher than the regular level, which should not exceed 50 micro grams.

Trajce Stafilov, professor at the chemistry faculty in Skopje, said that “these particles enter the lungs and if they contain toxic matter they can poison the organism”.

Dusko Hristov, from Balkan Bridges, an NGO that is part of a Balkan ecological coalition, says smog in autumn and winter is nothing new for Skopje and an alarm is only being raised now because the city recently introduced a live monitoring system available to the public.

But he complains that independent NGOs have no access to big factories to check on the causes of pollution. “The big polluters do not allow us to enter and see how they work,” Hristov said.

As part of a package of urgent measures, the government and city said they are considering traffic restrictions at critical intersections in Skopje.

Environment Minister Abdulakim Ademi has advised the city to use only its newer busses as they have lower emissions of pollutants.

According to Skopje’s Local Ecological Plan, drawn up in 2008, 70 per cent of Skopje’s pollution that year was carbon monoxide, released into the air and mostly resulting from solid fuels used in industry and emissions from gasoline and diesel fuel in traffic.

Macedonian companies have until 2014 to implement EU environmental regulations, meaning the installment of modern air filters and water treatment facilities.
 
But amid the global economic downturn, some big factories have already asked for a prolongation of the deadline until 2017 or beyond, as they say that installing eco-friendly equipment now will cost millions of euros.