Bijelo Polje: On January 7th, the air was 12 times more polluted than the upper limit, no one warned citizens

On January 7th of this year, the air in Bijelo Polje was 12 times more polluted than the upper limit allowed.

Although it was an obligation, no one warned citizens that they were breathing air that was extremely dangerous to their health that day.

In recent years, local authorities have attempted to reduce pollution by installing purification filters on the boilers of several state-owned institutions.

However, according to environmental activists, the filters, which cost over 100 thousand euros, have not yielded any results.

Polluted air in Pljevlja has long been no surprise, and Bijelo Polje has been sharing the same problem for years. This is because the values ​​of pm 10 and pm 2.5 particles are above the limit.

This is a wake-up call for everyone in the largest city in the northern region, believes environmental activist Milorad Mitrović.

"Sometimes these overruns are, say, two days more than in Pljevlja. We are overrun in Pljevlja for 20 days, and Bijelo Polje is overrun for 22 days," Mitrović told Television Vijesti.

The Bijelo Polje Secretariat for Rural and Sustainable Development did not respond to questions from Television Vijesti regarding the measures the Municipality is implementing to reduce air pollution.

It is also not known whether they analyzed the effects of installing air purification filters that they installed on several buildings in the center.

"As far as I could see from the media, 60 thousand euros were spent twice, but those filters did not produce results, because if they had, the emission of those PM 10 particles would have been reduced," said Mitrović.

The air is at its worst in the winter months, and one of the most critical days in Bijelo Polje was January 7th, when at 15 p.m. pollution was measured to be 12 times higher than the limit allowed in the European Union (EU).

The measuring station recorded pm 10 particles at a value of 626 milligrams per cubic meter, while the much more dangerous pm 2.5 particles reached an extremely critical 560 milligrams per cubic meter at that moment.

Doctor Borko Bajić from the Institute of Public Health points out that the issue of the impact of polluted air on health is often pushed to the background, and that it is the chemicals we breathe that shorten life expectancy and have a very harmful effect on the body.

"Not only on our lungs where we breathe air, but also on the circulatory and nervous systems. We know that Montenegro has the highest death rate from stroke and heart attack, lung cancer in men, and breast cancer in women," Bajić told Vijesti Television.

Therefore, Bajić believes that it is necessary to adopt a Plan of Intervention Measures in order to reduce particle emissions, which are caused by the use of individual furnaces, boiler rooms and traffic.

"Let's say if we have air pollution for two or three days in a row during the winter period, which is the most common period, it's not clear who should do what. From city services to those who pollute the air," said Bajić.

Bijelo Polje and Pljevlja are not alone in this problem, as residents of Podgorica have also been suffocating in dust particles for a long time.

Neither the Pljevlja nor Podgorica authorities are taking decisive measures to fix what we cannot do without.