27,000 people die of air pollution in Iran every year
The people of Arak held a protest gathering in the city’s Bagh-e Melli (National Garden) on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. They protested Shazand Power Plant’s use of Mazut as its source of energy. The plant significantly contributes to air pollution in this metropolitan city.
Women’s participation in this protest was considerable. Government troops initially collected the protesters’ placards and dispersed them after half an hour.
Arak is one of eight Iranian metropolises with severe air pollution. Some time ago, officials of the Markazi Province endorsed that Shazand Power Plant used Mazut as its fuel.
Subsequently, a group of professors teaching at Arak’s University of Technology urged the city officials to stop using Mazut since it pollutes the city’s air and jeopardizes the lives of more than one million innocent residents of the city.
Mazut is a liquid residue remaining after the distillation of petroleum, and a low-quality heavy fuel oil, used in power plants.
Tuesday’s protest is the second time the residents of Arak have been protesting the authorities’ use of mazut.
Last Tuesday, December 26, 2023, hundreds of residents of Ardakan, in the central Iranian province of Yazd, took to the streets in protest of the city’s polluted air.
The caretaker of the National Center of Air and Climate Change in the Environmental Protection Organization, Daryoush Gol-Alizadeh, revealed last month that over 6,000 people in Tehran and 27,000 people across the country lose their lives every year due to air pollution. (The state-run fararu.com, December 2, 2023)
