In Italy and in Europe in general there is a smog alarm. The European Environment Agency has recently released its report which focuses in particular on children: every year over 1,200 minors are victims of the pollution accumulated in the 27 EU countries and in Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey . Governments are appealing for specific policies aimed at protecting children and adolescents with the proposal to create "clean air zones" around schools.

Looking at Italy, Sardinia records the best data. In fact, Sassari is in 16th place – together with Livorno – among the cities where the air quality is considered acceptable .

But it is the green areas around the schools that are lacking : on average, according to data, just over 10% of the area within a radius of 300 meters from the educational facilities is green, and only 6% is covered by trees. The schools with the greenest surroundings tend to be in northern Europe.

In Italy, in cities such as Milan, Bari and Naples, less than 5% of the area within 300 meters of schools is green. Things are better in Rome, Florence and Bologna, where the percentage is between 5 and 10%.

Cremona is among the European cities with the highest concentration of fine particulate matter in the air (Pm2.5), ranking 372nd. Only the monitoring stations of Piotrkow Trybunalski and Nowi Sacz, in Poland, and Slavonski Brod in Croatia are doing worse.

Padua is 367th. Bergamo, Piacenza, Brescia and Venice occupy positions from 356 to 359, Milan 349. Rome is 257th, Naples 241st.

Scrolling the ranking from bottom to top, Genoa is the first Italian city with an air quality defined as acceptable (158th place). In the same group, Livorno (33rd) and Sassari , with the best data in Italy, in 16th place. Faro, Portugal, and the Swedish cities of Umea and Uppsala were ranked as the cities with the cleanest air in the EU.

The Po Valley, on the other hand, is confirmed among the European regions with the highest levels of particulate matter (Pm10 and Pm2.5) in the atmosphere. High concentrations are also found in central and eastern Europe, mainly due to the use of coal for heating and industrial production. Nitrogen dioxide, whose emissions are mainly caused by traffic, characterizes the air of all the major cities of the continent, while high concentrations of ozone mainly affect Italy and the Mediterranean basin due to the role of solar radiation and of the heat in the formation of this gas.