A year could hardly begin in more contrasting ways: the introduction of bans on driving motor vehicles in cities on the one hand, and the lifting of the ban on burning agricultural waste in the countryside on the other.

For comparison, studies from Germany have shown that a larger garden fire burning for six hours produces 250 times as much particulate matter as an old diesel bus running all day.

Seen on Friday, 17.02.2023 and this picture could hardly be more grotesque: In front of the building of the Spanish test center for motor vehicles “itv”, where the exhaust gas values are also measured, an agricultural fire smokes so strongly that one can hardly see the “itv” sign. This fire generates particulate matter from 250 old diesel buses that will soon be banned from operating in the city. But this pollution is not even measured.

Let’s make a calculation: There are a good 900,000 farms in Spain. If each of them burns a green waste pile just once a year, that’s x 250 : 365 = 616,000 old diesel buses running all day, every day of the week, all year long. But we probably need to talk about more, much more in fact.

You will soon be able to see how much particulate matter we have to talk about from agricultural burns in my fire diary on YouTube and Facebook in about one minute time-lapse videos.

More information about the possible driving bans, the environmental stickers for your vehicle and many other interesting topics for expatriates can be found here: https://deutschlandverlassen.com/umweltplakette/