Italian mayor bans pizza ovens to fight smog

The southern Italian town of San Vitaliano, near Naples, has been suffering from a mysterious pollution problem in recent years.

Wood-fired pizza oven. Image by Basheer Tome / CC BY 2.0

Last year the air quality in the small town was declared unsafe on 114 days, far more than in the city of Milan, where air quality was a problem on 86 days. In an attempt to deal with the issue, local mayor Antonio Falcone has banned agricultural, artisanal, industrial and commercial producers from burning wood, woodchips, coal and charcoal unless they have a filter system in place. Owners of the town’s many pizzerias with wood-burning pizza stoves are angry about the change, with one saying: ‘Shocking, it’s so ridiculous. They don’t want us to make pizza?’. Read more: thelocal.it