Residents of Zaporizhzhia demand reduction of industrial air pollution

Residents of Zaporizhzhia demand reduction of industrial air pollution

Katerina Belousova

During adverse weather conditions, industrial emissions are not dispersed and people are forced to breathe poisonous air

Residents of Zaporizhzhia demand that polluting enterprises be forced to adjust their work during adverse weather conditions in order to reduce air pollution.

The corresponding petition, which has already gathered the required number of signatures, was registered on the website of Zaporizhzhia City Council.

The deputies of the city council are required to create a temporary commission with the participation of the public in order to find a way to oblige polluters to adjust their work.

"We live in a city that is polluted by industry. The emissions produced by the industry are scattered over long distances and often the townspeople do not feel this pollution," said the author of the petition, Mykola Ralyk.

He emphasized that during adverse weather conditions, industrial emissions "remain in the city" and people are forced to breathe poisonous air.

"Mass complaints of citizens in recent days about stench throughout the city indicate that the air quality management body does not ensure quality air in the city. The metallurgical stench reaches even Baburka [a region on the right bank of the Dnieper – ed.]," the appeal reads.

Earlier, Ecopolitic wrote, that in 2022, the head of the regional state administration, Oleksandr Starukh, stated that emissions into the atmosphere cause great indignation among residents, so it is necessary to speed up the solution to this problem.

As EcoPolitic previously reported, in Zaporizhzhia, in the industrial zone of the Shevchenkiv district, an entrepreneur installed a homemade furnace in which he remelts batteries. Such activity produces black smoke with a very unpleasant smell.

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