Milan disputes pollution data showing it as third most polluted city in the world
Milan found itself shrouded in smog Tuesday amid a dispute over data released by a monitoring group, ranking the northern Italian city among the most polluted globally, alongside Dhaka, Lahore, and Chengdu.
The debate ignited on Sunday when the Swiss real-time air quality website IQAir labeled Milan as “unhealthy” due to the significantly elevated levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) in the air, exceeding the World Health Organisation’s recommended limit by 24 times. This ranking positioned Milan third after Dhaka and Lahore.
The densely populated industrial hub briefly climbed to second place on Monday, surpassing Chengdu, before dropping to tenth on Tuesday. IQAir gathers its data from a combination of governmental stations and sensors owned by citizen scientists worldwide.
Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, refuted the IQAir data, dismissing it as “impromptu analyses” by a private entity and criticised media coverage sourced from social media.
The Lombardy branch of Arpa, a regional environmental agency, labeled IQAir’s classification as “unreliable” but acknowledged that PM 2.5 levels had surpassed limits in recent days, prompting anti-pollution measures.
Lombardy, situated in the Po Valley, faces significant air pollution issues, worsened by unseasonably high temperatures. Guido Lanzani of Arpa Lombardy anticipated an improvement with the expected rainfall from Thursday.
