The unbreathable air of the Western Balkans

Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia in the Western Balkans, is one of the most polluted cities in the world. Almost the same situation is in the neighbouring countries: Albania and Kosovo*.

People living in this area are struggling to find some clean air.  In the last report of 2021 from the European Environmental Agency (EEA) around 5.580 Macedonian citizens died due to air pollution, 5410 citizens in Albania and 3430 in Kosovo.

During the investigation the team confirmed that the main sources of air pollution are the old vehicles, bad quality of the fuel, households burning varnished wood and plastic to be warm during winter, construction sites and power plants.

The main pollutants that are found in the three countries are mainly PM2.5 and PM10, NO2 and ozone. Researching on the ground, our team in Skopje found out that the level of PM2.5 particles in one spot of the city was 152 times above the annual permissible value, set by the World Health Organization. 

From the European institutions we confirmed that Albania has not reported air quality data since 2019, when only measurements from one PM2.5 monitoring station were reported. For the rest of the main air pollutants, there are no reported data since, at least, 2017. In Kosovo, the main sources of pollution are considered the use of coal and vehicular traffic. 562,425 cars are registered in the country, 108,975 of which are produced before 1990.