Italian Town Fights Smog With ... Pizza Ban?

• News & Highlights

Few things are more Italian than baking pizza in a perfectly smoldering wood-fired stove, so San Vitaliano's move to ban the beloved practice comes as a surprise. The town of 6,000 north of Naples has some of the worst air pollution in Italy—Il Mattino says its air quality is worse than Beijing's, while Naples is "a perfumed garden" in comparison—but environmental tests have failed to identify the source. In an effort to "take maximum precautions to ensure the problem doesn't deteriorate," Mayor Antonio Falcone has banned "agricultural, artisanal, industrial, and commercial producers … from burning solid biomass such as wood, woodchips, coal, and charcoal," unless filter systems are in place to eliminate 80% of pollutants, reports the Local. The rule will be in place until at least the end of March, reports the BBC.