Verona is the most polluted city in Italy, together with Padua and Vicenza

From January to March 2024 there are already eight Italian cities outlawed for fine dust, having exceeded the limit set for PM10 by 35 days in a calendar year, with an average exceeding 50 micrograms per cubic meter. They reveal it air quality data released by Legambiente on the occasion of the 54th Earth Day. It is the most polluted city in Italy Veronafollowed by Vicenza and Padua.

Verona is the most polluted city in Italy

“The care and well-being of the Earth depends first of all on good air quality. To have a planet with clean air and more liveable and healthy cities, we need a collective commitment that involves not only the institutions, but also the citizens, in the fight against smog. You can’t hold your breath, breathing is living. Each of us can make our contribution by choosing sustainable mobility and nutrition and contributing to more urban greenery in the city”.

This is the message that Legambiente launched yesterday, 22 April 2024, on the occasion of the 54th World Earth Day promoted by the United Nations, bringing to the fore the topic of air pollution which increasingly suffocates Italian cities, also undermining the health of citizens and that of the planet.

THE data released by Legambiente in fact, they paint a worrying picture for the Veneto, to say the least. I’m really Venetian the 3 cities with the worst air quality in Italy: it’s about Verona, Vicenza and Paduawhere in the first three months of 2024 the 35 days per year of exceeding the fine dust limit set by law have already been exceeded.

It is Verona with 44 days out of 91 the city with the most frequent exceeding of the level of 50 micrograms per cubic meter of PM 10, followed closely by Vicenza with 41 days and Padua 39.

But in the rest of the Region things are no better: up to 31 March 2024 there were 36 days of overruns at Venice35 y Treviso and 34 y Rovigo.

Here you are the national ranking complete made known by Legambiente, which took into account the daily limit set for PM10 (max. 35 days per year).

“We need more 30 zones, cycle networks and filling the cities with greenery”

A serious situation that calls into question everyone’s behaviors for nutrition for mobility, but which cannot improve at all without precise political choices at a local and national level. In fact, it is necessary to put various aspects in synergyfrom building heating, to agriculture, to traffic management in urban areas.

“More 30 zones within cities – he argued Luigi Lazzaro, president of Legambiente Veneto – more school roads, more cycle paths, more public transport. Obviously we need to plant trees and fill our cities and our regional territory with greenery, we need to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and, finally, we need to work hard on agriculture, which is increasingly circular, which better manages its waste and its sewage above all animal husbandry because the impact of intensive farming is particularly important for our region”.

The requests of the mayors of the Po Valley to the Government and the EU

On 24 April 2024 the European Union will ratify the new directive to improve air quality. New restrictions are therefore on the way to reduce air pollution, which continues to be the leading environmental cause of premature death in the EU.

But first, both the EU and the Italian government will receive the pact signed by the mayors of the cities of the Po Valleyincluding that of Verona: a sort of appeal to ask Italy and Europe with a single voice to be at their side in the commitment to improve air quality.

“Breathing clean air is a fundamental right of all of us – we read in the note– as Mayors and Mayoress, local administrators and administrators, we are called to do our part starting from our territories, committing ourselves to promoting measures that are increasingly attentive to the environment. We are aware, however, that when we talk about air we cannot limit ourselves to wearing the lenses of the municipal perimeter, as if a border drawn by man could stop the air, but we must necessarily consider the entire Po Valley”.

Among the first citizens, also Damiano Tommasi

In recent years the Municipality of Verona has started a massive urban reforestation campaign, planned the creation of 25 km of new cycle paths, launched the first energy transition plan, given impetus to the use of local public transport with the creation of the trolleybus and with a series of initiatives aimed at limiting air pollution. But it’s not enough.

This is why the mayors ask the Italian Government to make it available dedicated investments urgently to reduce the negative impact on the environment of the transport of people and goods and of agricultural and industrial activities.

Among these, on the front line the mayor of Verona Damiano Tommasi, who actively participated in the meeting with the first citizens of the Po Valley.

They are needed concrete investments in financing and sustainability of local public transport, especially in the transition to electric vehicles. Extraordinary funds are also needed for plans to replace obsolete boilers and, more generally, for the energy efficiency of buildings and urban reforestation, quickly and with an agile and efficient delivery system.

The appeal to the European Union for an extraordinary plan

Also to the European Union is asked to do its part, with an extraordinary plan at all levels. The issue of air quality cannot be addressed only occasionally and on a municipal scale: it is a continuous challenge and constant that involves all the players in the area.

You ask strong coordination of actions, also through a special commissioner structure, which, in agreement with local authorities, helps to identify possible actions and objectives and to achieve them also through the provision of funds and resources, to be added to those of the Government, to deal with the many interventions.