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Comment by pkolaczk | Hacker News Reader

That depends heavily on the exact place you live. Warsaw has central heating and central natural gas distribution network, so almost no one uses coal or wood here. My air pollution meter shows very low levels of P2.5 and P10 (< 20 p/ug) for the majority of the year.

It’s easy to manipulate by using a color scale where perfectly harmless pollution levels are painted red or black.

Better map (live) here: https://airly.org/map/pl/

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Warsaw is surrounded by suburbs and peripheral small towns that have predominantly single family housing which usually have fireplace as secondary heating source and often coal/wood as primary heating source.

If you follow for example air quality in Legionowo (one of Warsaw northern suburubs) since November till March the air quality drops at around 6pm until 6am to the levels compared to most industrial parts of Silesia. This pollution spreads over central areas of Warsaw depending on the winds.

Suburbs near Warsaw are almost all connected to the gas network. I have many friends who own a house (and I also own a house at the border of the city) and I know nobody who would heat with coal.

However the major problem is that gas is expensive and wood is cheaper. It is enough that one house in the neighborhood is heated by burning wood and everybody can smell it.

The situation is also much worse in small villages far from Warsaw.

This is hourly/etc. though?

The one I posted was the yearly average which I think is a much better way to look at this (maybe monthly would be better though).

> < 20 p/ug

~ 20 seems quite high (IMHO)

> so almost no one uses coal or wood here

Power plants might be the much bigger issue. Coal is still > 60%, of course it has improved massively over the last few years (used to be almost 80% a few years ago). IIRC Poland produces more electricity from coal than all the other EU countries combined besides Germany (who also suck).

What you're pointing at is mostly irrelevant - the massive coal / lignite plants are obviously filtering the exhaust through filters according to EU levels. A family member works in the field.

The actual air pollution issue stems from small heaters used in houses that haven't been upgraded yet (or people using them improperly / burning trash) - but there's plenty of EU funding going towards replacing them. Many of the remaining users are unfortunately living in poverty and can't even afford the remaining 20-30% of the price + heating afterwards can absolutely become more expensive.

Nah, it's mostly residential houses heating with coal. In the winter the air quality is shit, in the summer it's pretty much the same as in the rest of EU.

Coal powerplants suck cause they produce a lot of CO2, but they don't polute much (because of mandatory filters). It's negligible compared to unfiltered coal heating in millions of homes.

What exactly does a "air pollution meter" measure, and how do I get one?

It counts pollution particles in the air by highlighting them with a ray of laser light and counting the reflections. Air cleaners usually come with a device of this kind. Or you can build one yourself by buying the sensor separately (eg. PMS7003) and attaching it to a microcontroller.

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