Isn’t it shocking that pizza is bad for the environment. Well, a study revealed that Sao Paolo’s (Brazil) environment is still being destroyed by emissions from the 1,800 pizzas made daily in wood-burning stoves.
The study, which was published in Atmospheric Environment, mentioned that while the mega city has less pollution from the transportation sector (vehicles), there is still much to do regarding air pollution and air quality.
But how is pizza related to all of this? In Sao Paolo, the only city in Brazil, so far, that uses biofuel cars, is being polluted by pizza stoves, and the city’s steakhouses.
Everyone loves pizza so much in that city, and this is a serious alarm, especially with 1,800 pizzas a day, in a city with 11 million people.
The study mentions that it is still unclear if the same pizza problem is present in other cities in the world. So gas might be banned, but wood-burned pizza, now that’s really delusional, with many fans for this type of food.
The study’s lead author, civil engineering professor Prashant Kumar, says that more than 7.5 hectares (about 19 acres) of eucalyptus forest are burned every month by the pizza restaurants mentioned in the study.
According to him, “This is significant enough of a threat to be of real concern to the environment negating the positive effect on the environment that compulsory green biofuel policy has on vehicles.”
Discussing the dangers of “fancy” pizza does not mean that the biofuel initiatives were useless, though, since using gasoline would worsen the problem even more.
While “Columbia Earth Institute” says the biggest source of pollution worldwide isn’t cars anyway, the news that switching to biofuel possibly doesn’t have as much impact as hoped isn’t surprising.
Pizza lovers in Sao Paolo, you need to re-think about your food choices, for the environment; for your own well-being.
