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AIR POLLUTION IN KYIV becomes a very serious environmental and health problem and challenge to be resolved or tackled, at least. People who live in the downtown area and suburbs suffer from extremely polluted air there. The issue of air pollution was very serious a long time before it came on the surface and became highly discussible in Ukrainian society. During the Soviet times, the government did not take care of workers who were suffering from the polluted environment and that was why they raised this problem in society. Also, in this regard, it is important to include the Chernobyl disaster, transport murk and dirty smog from factories that are historically located in the middle of the city close to where people live. Moreover, during the last couple of years, this problem has been growing constantly due to the reason that the city is getting overpopulated which creates more factors of pollution and making people suffer from its consequences. The main pollution substances are sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and nitric oxide.

History and background information

Chernobyl

The Chernobyl tragedy caused pollution all over the European continent, pollutants from the nuclear station were transported with the wind in the air over different parts of the Soviet Union and Europe. More than 200,000 sq.km of Europe were contaminated and over 70% of the Soviet Union territories were distributed with radioactive pollutants unevenly. After a couple of decades of having faced its terrible consequences, some people unresponsively do not take this issue into consideration. Unfortunately, radioactive pollutants can be active for ages and cause harm to the environment cutting people’s lives and making health risks higher. Since Kyiv is only 134 km away from the Chernobyl, the quality of its air is affected by radiation until nowadays. The higher level of nuclear components in the air is very common also in 2019 when fire happed in Chernobyl forests the level of radiation in the downtown exceeded the safe level.

Industry

Other causes are the locations of big factories due to historic reasons. Arsenal Factory was built in the 17th century right in the center of Kyiv because the factory location was considered to be strategically important for national safety. The factory is focused on manufacturing military grenades and rockets, photo cameras and optics. Being historically located downtown, the factory was polluting the air with harmful particles for the last couple of hundred years. Even nowadays, when the factory is still producing very little, people who live in that neighborhoods have regular complaints about their health due to the pollution caused by the factory. The next example is the Kyiv rubber factory which is again located in the middle of the city and the low ecological standards of the factory make tremendous pollution for the city. Nowadays, the factory is super active and works 24 hours 7 days a week. It produces rubber products for various purposes including agro-industry complex, construction, railways, ports, for example: sealing rings, cuffs for hydraulic devices, technical plates, vacuum tubes, personal protective equipment, rubber, etc. People who live close express their regularly complains during the daytime especially when the wind blows to the direction of their house and it is impossible to breathe because they feel the smell of rubber in the air. It is not recommended for young couples to live in this area. The fourth demonstrative case is the factory “Forge on Rybalsky” located again in the city area where most of the other factories do. The steelwork factory produces iron and massive military equipment (cars and boats). Due to the location and specifics of production the factory manufactures, it is another serious cause of air pollution. Usually, those people who live in surrounding areas are more likely to get cancer. As was mentioned earlier, due to historical reasons Kyiv has a lot of factories and production inside the city where air pollution becomes an unavoidable problem. Some of those factories were built in the 1700-1800s and still are being employed nowadays. Certain of them still use equipment from those times not being modernized with modern environment-friendly technologies. For example, the equipment on the factory “Forge on Rybalsky” does not meet modern environment protection standards and needs of the society, although, the products manufactured there, are important for the national economy. To describe all of the industrial pollution cases in Kyiv, a writer will write a book for a reason that they are 120 in the city.

Growing Population

In the 1950s, when the Kyiv subway was constructed, the engineering coverage aimed at the passenger flow of 1-2million of the population. But since the 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed, the lifestyle in the country changed and the majority of people moved to the city of Kyiv because the capital city could provide good job opportunities and the population started growing tremendously fast. For example, in 2001 the population of the City of Kyiv was 2,5 million people, today it is 7 million and the number keeps growing. The overloaded transport system with a huge amount of cars creates long traffic jams in 2019 and Kyiv got the 13th position in the rate of traffic jams during the rush hours. As it is known, heavy traffic is one of the main causes of air pollutions and makes a negative impact on the environment which, in its turn, “guarantees” a serious smog challenge for the city.

Smog Problem

In 2017, the smog problem started escalating. The city was covered with smog for a couple of days. This was one of the important moments when Ukrainian began thinking about environmental concerns.

Measurement of Pollution

According to the air pollution measuring which was done right on the main street Khreshchatyk in August 2019, the level of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) was 4 times higher than the allowed level is, formaldehyde (CH2O) was 2,5 times higher, and CO2 was two times higher than allowed. Different groups of entwists measure pollution every day in the city and usually see that it is a couple of times higher than the norms are for the quality air.

According to the air pollution dated as of August 2019 by Central Geophysics Observatory, we can see that there are 12 different spots in the city where air pollution is 7-14 times higher than it should be. Such an air pollution situation is tremendously horrible for Kyiv inhabitants.

Possible Solutions

In 2010, the Government established the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources which is considered to be in the system of executive central government monitoring the ecological situation in the country. Unfortunately, for an unstable economic situation and other current social problems in Ukrainian society, to ensure the friendly environment for the population is not the main Government priority right now. All of the functioning factories and which are extremely harmful to the Kyiv environment are extremely important for national safety because of the war and products they manufacture. Moreover, some of them have a non-stop production cycle and they cannot be paused or stopped since it will be impossible to launch again, otherwise they will need to change of whole equipment which was working nonstop for the last 100 years. The biggest hope is to count on the fashion trend that is coming from the western part of the world and deals with environmental concerns, for example, to divide the rubbish and biking instead of driving. Other recent big changes in the education system make kids explore and study sustainable development and how to interact with the environment without making no harm to it, and air pollution is a big part of this conception. Nowadays, Ukrainian society demonstrates its willingness to change a lot in terms of taking care of the environment. The environment protection tendencies which are observed now show that the ways to resolve the air pollution problems will become more effective in a short-and long-term perspective.