Particulates

On December 4, Sofia citizens will be traveling by public transport with a special "green ticket" for BGN 1, the Sofia Municipality announced. It is valid all day for all lines.

Big cities in Bulgaria remain in the grip of the dirty air in the next few days, NOVA said.

Lack of wind and the keeping of cold air low above the ground are the reason why we will breathe poisons. According to the European Commission's "Air Quality Index" this morning, the fine particulate matter (PM10) concentration is above the norm in almost every major city.

Forecast of dangerously polluted air in Sofia Municipality.

Exceeding the norm of fine particulate matter is today and tomorrow. According to the site of the municipality, the most dirty is the air over the districts "Druzhba", "Hipodruma" and "Nadezhda".

The Ministry of Environment and Water accepts suggestions on the national air quality programme until December 5, then it will be adopted as a government document, Minister Neno Dimov told a public discussion on the draft, a Focus News Agency reporter said.

Today is a day for cleaner air in Sofia. The goal is people to realize that we are all part of the change to a clean environment for living. Municipal officials do not use their personal and business cars. In addition to state administrations, private companies and schools were also involved in the initiative.

Air pollution with fine particles has led in 2015 to the premature death of 14,200 people in Bulgaria. This was shown by a study of the European Environment Agency covering 41 European countries. It is an updated version of the report covering the period 2000-2016.

Air pollution is slowly easing in EU countries but still causes nearly half a million early deaths each year, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said in its annual report published Monday, reports AFP. 

Although pollution levels dropped slightly in 2015, they remain far higher than standards set by both the European Union and the World Health Organization, the report said.

Sofia. We expect that Varna will be taken off the list of cities with high levels of fine particulate matter this year, Minister of Environment and Water Neno Dimov said during the presentation of the National Programme for Improvement of Ambient Air Quality 2018-2024, Focus News Agency reports.

AFP - Urban air pollution, mostly from vehicles, is associated with an increased risk of dementia, according to research published Wednesday.

The link remained even after heavy drinking, smoking and other well established risk factors for dementia were ruled out, the researchers reported in medical journal BMJ Open.

Exposure to air pollution may impede cognitive ability as people become older, with less-educated men the worst affected, a new study has found.

"Most existing research on air pollution focuses on its health effects," study author Xiaobo Zhang told Euronews. "Our study shows a persistent negative effect on cognitive health, which not been widely discussed."