Alarm for Palermo's air: at least until mid-August, nearly 80 thousand people in Palermo and neighboring municipalities will have to pay close attention to what and how they eat, because they are thought to be more vulnerable to dioxin risk. After the alarm for the toxic substance detected in the air by Arpa Sicilia (Regional Agency for Environmental Protection) on July 28, following the fire that for four days burned the waste of a tank at the Bellolampo landfill, Roberto Lagalla, the mayor of Palermo, signed the ordinance with prohibitions and advice to avoid contamination yesterday. The measure applies to a 4-kilometer area that includes the popular neighborhoods of Cruillas, Cep, and Borgo Nuovo, as well as the Municipality of Torretta and a portion of Capaci. Of course, the residents of the houses along the road leading to Bellolampo are also involved. In addition to the nutrition warnings, the ordinance mandates the special cleaning of streets and public and private open spaces in the area deemed by ARPA to be at risk because the level of dioxin detected between 10:00 p.m on July 24 and 10:00 p.m. on July 25 was three times higher than the parameter used by experts as a benchmark. The toxic substance is hazardous to human consumption because it settles in the soil and enters the food chain, which includes vegetables, milk, and meat. Also in the Lazio Region, following a fire at a nonhazardous waste storage and recovery facility in Ciampino, Arpa Lazio installed two high-volume samplers to test the air quality and, consequently, for the possible presence of pollutants. The fire started on July 29, just a few hundred meters from Ciampino airport. The control units, on the other hand, did not display critical issues that would cause an alarm to sound.
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