How ‘smog capital of Poland’ saved 6,000 lives by cutting soot levels

Smog over Kraków. A reduction in soot – known as black carbon – saved 5,897 lives over a decade, according to the European Clean Air Centre Photograph: Łukasz Gągulski/EPA

As a child, Marcel Mazur had to hold his breath in parts of Kraków thick with “so much smoke you could see and smell it”. Now, as an allergy specialist at Jagiellonian University Medical College who treats patients struggling to breathe, he knows all too well the damage those toxic gases do inside the human body.

“It’s not that we have this feeling that nothing can be done. But it’s difficult,” Mazur said.