The city with the cleanest air in the world

Surprisingly, he wasn’t always this clean. Between 1916 and 1962, It was a coal mining town, until an explosion killed 21 miners, leading to the evacuation of the city and the closure of the mine. It has since been transformed into a place where data is extracted from the environment instead of coal.

“Clean-ups have been done regularly since the 1960s when the mines were closed, but unfortunately there is still some pollution left in both the mining district and the city,” says Han Karen Tolan, a research consultant at the Ny Olsund Base, which is run by a company owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment called Kings Bay AS”. Kings Bay, which manages the entire settlement of Ny-ÅlesundAnd the He conducted environmental surveys to map pollution in the ground in 2019-2022 to reveal the extent and as a basis for further clean-up actions. All rubbish, waste and contaminated soil are sent to approved reception places on mainland Norway.”

But while those who work in Ny-Olsund spend much of their time researching what is in the air above their heads, life on Earth in the city is extraordinary. Residents come from all over the world including France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Norway, Japan, South Korea and China, among others.

There are only two weekly flights into the city from Longyearbyen, Svalbard, which are served in a bone-vibrating helicopter.

The city itself consists of about 30 cabin-like buildings named after large global urban centers: Amsterdam, London, Mexico, Italy – to name a few. It serves as a reminder of the need for diplomatic relations in this place away from the bustling crowds.

However, other forms of communication are not immediately available – all mobile phones and Wi-Fi networks must be turned off. The The city is a radio-free zone In an effort to keep the airwaves in the area as quiet as possible, special permission is required for researchers who want to operate any device that uses radio transmission.