Apnea Against Pollution

Legambiente, the leading environmental association in Italy that has been working since 1980 to improve the country's environment, combat pollution, and tackle environmental crime, launches Apnea Against Pollution to once again raise awareness among the public about air pollution in Italy. It does so starting from Milan with a striking performance, conceived in collaboration with the agencies of the Publicis Group Leo Burnett and MSL, and realized in Piazza XXV Aprile, together with the former world freediving record holder, now a medical doctor and sports coach, Mike Maric, who immersed himself inside a transparent cube containing the highest level of smog recorded last February in Milan (118 µg/mc3 of PM2.5), twenty-four times above the limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) . The aim is to send a precise and clear message: "To fight pollution, we must not stop breathing but find solutions to breathe again."

The Apnea Against Pollution project starts from data collected by Legambiente in the "Mal'Aria di Città 2024" report, and the "Città2030" campaign, which show that levels of air pollution in the main Italian urban centers are still far from the regulatory limits set for 2030 by European negotiations and exceed the values suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to Legambiente's latest report, in 2023, 18 cities out of the 98 analyzed exceeded the daily limits of PM10: Frosinone recorded 70 days of exceeding, followed by Turin (66), Treviso (63), Mantua, Padua, and Venice with 62. Also worrying is the comparison with the new European regulatory targets set for 2030, according to which 69% of cities are in violation for PM10, 84% for PM2.5, and 50% for NO2, and the Po Valley represents one of the most vulnerable areas in the country.

Added to this situation are the dramatic data on deaths from smog and the development of disabling diseases due to excessive air pollution. According to the European Environment Agency, hundreds of thousands of people die prematurely in Europe every year because they are exposed to pollutant concentrations higher than the levels recommended by the WHO, and Italy holds a sad record with over 47,000 annual deaths from PM 2.5 (out of a total of 253,000 deaths in the 27 EU countries).

Alarming data that have led Legambiente to once again question how to make the serious repercussions of polluted air on citizens' health known and propose actions that can promptly improve it. Hence the creative concept of the installation with the symbolic cube of the fight against pollution, to draw attention to the issue, demand rapid and structural interventions that can no longer be postponed, together with the establishment of a technical-regulatory committee involving the Government, Regions, and local administrations on the issue of air quality, and to invite citizens at the same time to sign the petition "We've Had Enough of Lung Damage. No to Smog!" promoted by the environmental association.