Residents of Kyiv woke up this week to gray skies, muted sunlight and limited visibility. The city had been enveloped in a fog that still lingered at publication time.
It was so bad that, on Oct. 21, Boryspil International Airport halted flights for 30 minutes amid poor visibility and reports of nearby fields burning.
But the fog came at a time when meteorologists were also recording astoundingly bad air quality, raising a troubling question for Kyivans: Is it really fog, or is it smog?
On the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 22, the World Air Quality Index listed air pollution in the city as higher than in Beijing, with a hazardous 196 PM2.5 (a measure of atmospheric particulates) compared to Beijing’s moderate 61 PM2.5. While air pollution has decreased as the day wears on, concerns sparked by a barrage of social media posts about the pollution linger.
This is not the first time that Kyiv has experienced an excess of harmful chemicals in the air. This summer, on June 15, the State Emergency Service reported levels of pollution exceeding the norm by 5 times. However, the reasons for the smog this summer were hot weather, high atmospheric pressure and wind, something not seen today.
The State Emergency Service made an announcement that Kyivans should be wary of the “extreme mist,” particularly in the city’s west, where visibility was limited to 200-500 meters.
Other than that, the government has stayed silent and not offered a clear explanation of what exactly is going on. In Ukraine, that is hardly a reassuring sign. Many Ukrainians have memories of the Soviet government’s deafening silence during the first few days after Chornobyl.
Experts weigh in
The first official explanation of the poor air quality came from the Kyiv City State Administration (KSCA): peat, a soil-like accumulation of decaying vegetation and organic matter was burning in nearby fields. In the Obukhiv district on the southern outskirts of Kyiv, firefighters extinguished a fire on 1.4 hectares of peatland.
It’s not an uncommon problem. Roman Tkachuk, head of the KSCA’s Department of Civil Protection, said that 40 hectares of peat burned near Kyiv last year.
At the moment, he suggested, the main reasons could be the use of solid fuel to heat homes and people burning leaves directly in the city.
The Ukrainian Center for Environmental Initiatives Ecoaction, an environmental nonprofit, offered a similar explanation.
It attributed the smog to the burning of leaves and plant stubble, traditional methods of cleaning public areas. Weather also plays a role: Increased humidity and a lack of wind affect where smoke rises and spreads. Some areas of the city get luckier than others.
The smoke releases particulate matter and dust into the air. Some particles are able to penetrate into the lungs and bloodstream, causing or worsening lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis and heart diseases such as arrhythmia and heart attacks. Larger particles can cause irritation of the eyes and throat – something some Kyiv residents have noticed this week.
Unfortunately, there is little people can do to avoid breathing the polluted air, Ecoaction told the Kyiv Post. The best option is to leave the contaminated area, but outside of that, the most practical option is to filter the air through gauze or respiratory masks.
But the focus should be on making it more efficient to stop pollution, the organization says. Deliberately burning stubble, garbage and leaves is illegal, and people should call the authorities when they see it. Ukrainian law penalizes the “unauthorized burning of vegetation or its residues” with a fine of 170 to 340 UAH.
Ecoaction emphasizes that the problem of air pollution is about more than just burning leaves. Transport and industry are major sources of pollution in big cities, as well. They suggest that it is possible to reduce pollution through a systematic transport policy and by not allowing vehicles that exceed emission standards on the roads.
However, beyond their exhaust, cars still kick up dust from the earth’s surface, and their tires erode and contribute to emissions. The greenest solution would be to reduce the number of cars and build comfortable and reliable public transportation.
Bad ecology
Ukraine has no shortage of ecological problems, and the country has not been particularly effective at identifying and improving them.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country inherited an army of large-scale, energy inefficient industrial enterprises. Today, equipment and technologies in these factories remain outdated and generate enormous amounts of emissions. Of Ukraine’s coal-fired power plants, only a few have emission-reducing electrofilters installed.
The city of Zaporizhia, an industrial powerhouse of 740,000 people located 500 kilometers to the southeast of Kyiv, has some of the highest air pollution in Ukraine. In this case, the reason is clear: There are large reserves of coal, iron ore and manganese concentrate have made it a center of industries like automobile and aircraft engine manufacturing, engineering and chemical production.
But Zaporizhia is hardly the only place affected by bad air. According to World Health Organization data from 2016, more than 30,000 inhabitants per year will die from air pollution in Ukraine, and it is one of the places with the most polluted air among 160 countries studied.
In July, the Security Service of Ukraine launched a criminal investigationinto steel manufacturer ArcelorMittalin for air pollution in Kryvyi Rih, a city of 635,000 located more than 400 kilometers southeast of Kyiv. The investigation came just days after President Volodymyr Zelensky, a Kryvyi Rih native, harshly criticized the enterprise.
Ukrainian air quality is such a concern that Czech environmental nonprofit Arnika, together with Ecoaction, worked to form “Stop Poisoning Ukraine!”, a coalition uniting residents of the five industrial cities: Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhia and Mariupol.
A stop Eco-Genocide gathering on Oskorki bridge Oct. 24th.
Ecoaction suggests that the Ukrainian authorities should collect enterprise emissions information round-the-clock by installing air quality sensors at enterprises and make the available to the public. The organization also believes there should be fines and penalties for air pollution that are high enough to make it cheaper for enterprises to upgrade their equipment than to continue to polluting for cheap.
