Shrouded in Mist

Prilep has not experienced as much snow as it did during the day that I moved to my site.  For the most part it has been rather warm throughout December (above freezing) and snow has been a rare occurrence in Macedonia this winter.  However, I do remember the first major snowfall in the city- I was waiting outside the Economics University to meet with one of my colleagues from AIESEC.  It was pretty peaceful since the ground was covered in snow and the sky had that soft, cascading feeling.  Yet there was something different about the snowfall here when compared to the snowfall in Chicago.  Back home when the snow falls, it feels like the sky is overtaken by the falling snow, and that it’s ability to envelop everything is neither matched nor challenged.  Yet, during the snowfall in Prilep, the snow in the sky was joined by one other element- the smoke coming out of each building’s chimney.  As the sky was already filled with the plumes of smoke coming from the burning wood of each home, the snow was unable to dominate the skies like it does in the States.

I did not know it then, but this moment highlights a major issue during Macedonian winters.  Macedonia has a problem with air pollution during the winter.  I did not know how serious the pollution was until I read the following article:

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/photo-smog-bound-macedonian-capital

For those of you who clicked the link and read the article, the descriptions do not appear to be out of proportion.  Lethal smog has hit the major cities in Macedonia (ie. Skopje, Tetovo, and Bitola).  Exactly how lethal?  Well, when the article was written, the pollution particulates reached up to 120PM, while the maximum allowable level is 50.  The pollution level is higher than Beijing’s, a city notorious for having high levels of pollution. 

Luckily, the government pursued some efforts to help eradicate the problem.  A few factories were closed to contain the pollution.  The Skopje airport was also shut down for numerous days, most likely since the combination of smog and fog posed a threat to air traffic.  Yet, despite these valiant efforts to curb air pollution, the root of the problem seems to be trickier to solve. 

Macedonia does not have the same issues with traffic as some other countries, so while pollution from automobiles contribute to environmental issue here, enough people walk or travel by buses to reduce automobile emissions.  So the likely contributor to all of this pollution is most likely caused by fire-burning furnaces.  Almost every family in Macedonia heats their homes with firewood.  These furnaces are essential since electricity is so expensive.  Macedonians receive a discount price for electricity between 10PM and 7AM each day and all day Sunday, so most people usually wait to wash clothes, shower, iron clothes, etc. during these times.  Some families have electric heaters, but wood for burning is much cheaper than the electricity bill to keep a house warm during the season. 

Firewood is not the cleanest form of fuel.  Burning oil or coal to generate electricity is much cleaner than burning wood.  Therefore, as each household burns wood during a winter day, a larger cloud of smog will accumulate and hang over the city. Earlier this year, before winter started, I read an article that listed the worst cities for air pollution in all of Europe.  Almost every city on the list was a city in Bulgaria.  Most Bulgarian households also burn wood to keep their houses warm.  The article mentioned that one could walk through one of the cities in a white shirt during a winter day, and at the end of the day the shirt would be mildly yellow due to the particulates and pollution in the air.  Most cities in Bulgaria are bigger than the cities in Macedonia, so the pollution issues are probably much worse.  However, the issues are not different.

One may think that the solution to this air pollution problem should be easy.  People logically should move away from using fire-burning furnaces.  Yet, with no other cheap alternative, there is no way for the people of Macedonia to make the transition.  Thinking about this in an economical way, everybody in Macedonia who uses a wood-burning furnace is contributing to the social costs and reaps the social gains (cheaper fuel).  Therefore, the protests that are taking place in cities like Tetovo (young people wearing gas masks were protesting there today) are protesting against an issue that will not be abated simply by closing factories or forcing stricter regulation on them (though that would surely help a bit).  Some small solutions may include providing each household with a free solar panel (or at least a rebate and assistance in installing it).  Yet the government is tackling the problem by additionally taxing households that have more than one chimney (linked, of course, to an additional wood-burning furnace). 

Until Macedonia is able to find cheaper sources of electricity, it will probably be stuck with its pollution problem.  Joining the European Union would probably allow it to acquire cheaper gas or fossil fuels for electricity, or maybe additional access to power grids of foreign firms that can sell fuel more cheaply or efficiently.  But until it can join the trade union, Macedonians may need to get used to the smog.