Low emission hell in Polish cities – how to get rid of it through technical solutions applied in single family houses?

Abstract

Air in Polish cities belongs to the most polluted in Europe due to numerous causes e.g. high volume of road traffic, inefficient road infrastructure, the utilisation of environment unfriendly vehicle propulsion. However, the culmination of poor air problem noticeably occurs in winter as a result of the need for supplying buildings with a great amount of heat energy to defy influence of severe climate conditions. One of the most important causes for such situation deals with the application of solid fuel-based heat sources for heating buildings. The widespread burning of cheap coal in outdated home stoves results in producing smoke rife that includes carcinogens like dioxins and benzo(a)pyrene, as well as the small sooty particles that are strongly linked to heart disease, respiratory diseases and other sickness. Economical and social reasons make the application of such energy sources popular among single family house owners. Popularity of single family houses in Polish cities thus makes air pollution problem even more serious. Therefore, the effectiveness of selected solutions which would hopefully help to limit low pollution emission are discussed in the paper. They correspond well to current Polish government air improvement initiatives towards the improvement of air quality in Polish cities.