In an email to the editorial office, he wrote:
On Staszica, on the other side of my street, there are lots of single-family houses and small tenement buildings. Admittedly, there are also blocks connected to the district heating system, but from those houses, where perhaps 30% of the estate’s residents live, so much coal and wood smoke pours out that the courtyard looks like Beijing or Kraków; clouds of smoke drift around... When I sit in the flat, everything is fine, but when I open the window, I can smell smoke and sulfur.
And, of course, there is no monitoring station in Bolesławiec, unlike in Wrocław, Legnica or even Zgorzelec. From what I can see, there is intense lighting of fires around 6 p.m.; that is when it is dirtiest. Later, once the fuel has burned through and some people are asleep, the smoke is not as visible.
Apart from Staszica, I would of course recommend estates such as Okrzei Street; there are also many small buildings there. And perhaps Kwiatowe, although the houses there are generally somewhat newer, I think, so the stoves are better too.
As for the source of the smoke, we essentially have two sources at present. One is burning leaves in gardens, and the other, of course, is household stoves.
To introduce a ban on burning leaves, the municipality would have to introduce separate collection of organic waste, because some people do not want to compost leaves due to pests.
What is important is that 45,000 people die in Poland every year because of air pollution. Bolesławiec accounts for 0.106% of Poland’s population. So it can be assumed that 48 people die here every year. That is almost one person a week.
We asked the head of the Bolesławiec Municipal Police, Kamila Chalewicz-Pudłowska, whether Bolesławiec residents often report that people are burning, for example, rubbish. The Municipal Police commander said she remembered only two such reports, although she has worked in the municipal police for 10 years. It is worth noting that burning waste carries a fine of up to PLN 500.
So what is the situation? Is there a problem or not? We will return to the subject.