![]() Poland’s experience with smog isn’t on the same scale as parts of the Balkans such as Bosnia-Herzegovina. Before the pandemic, Krakow police started deploying drones with cameras to check chimneys from above for signs that household furnaces were illegally burning trash. The Malopolska regional assembly in Krakow, which is controlled by the ruling Law & Justice Party, last month voted to delay a ban on furnaces, allowing the burning of anything from coal to trash until early 2024. Some municipalities have been relaxing environmental restrictions introduced in recent years. He told supporters at a rally in Nowy Targ, southern Poland, that “one needs to burn almost everything, except for tires and similarly harmful things.” Last month, Law & Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the country’s most powerful politician, suggested people do whatever it takes to keep warm. The government, which has temporarily suspended quality controls for coal, is considering handing out protective masks as the temperature drops. Read more: On ‘toxic’ Asian stereotypes, ‘problematic’ representation, Meghan Markle talks ![]() It’s scary to think what happens when it really gets cold.”Īs Russia’s war in Ukraine exposes the fragility of Europe’s energy security, Poland has another layer of risk: that efforts to tackle pollution go backwards in a country with among the continent’s highest prevalence of premature deaths linked to contaminated air. “It’s so bad this season that you can smell trash burning every day, which is completely new,” said Mroczkowska, 35, a mother of three from Jablonna on the northern outskirts of Warsaw. But now a shortage of the fuel and the soaring cost of living are spurring people to burn alternatives - including household refuse. Poland is home to 40 of the 100 cities with the worst air quality in the European Union because of a reliance on coal to heat homes, a legacy of the communist era that championed mining. Her concern wasn’t over the hazards of uncollected waste, but how it was going to be used. When Paulina Mroczkowska noticed a growing pile of garbage in the yard of a carpenter’s workshop across the street, the alarm bell rang.
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