Over a third of Malta’s population said they were affected by pollution in 2023 – Eurostat

Over a third of Malta’s population reported that pollution, grime or other environmental issues affected their household in 2023, statistics published by Eurostat on Monday show.

With over a third (34.7%) of the Malta’s population reporting that such problems have affected their household, Malta recorded the highest rate for this metric by over 14 percentage points in comparison to the next worst European Union Member State, Greece.

Following Malta for how widespread these natured complaints were, were Greece (20.5%), Germany (16.8%), and France (16%).

On the other end of the spectrum, EU countries that reported the lowest share of their respective populations noting such complaints were Croatia (4.2%), followed by Sweden (5%), and Slovakia (5.8%).

Across the entire Union, 12.2% of the EU population reported pollution in their area to have affected their household. This marks a decrease of 2.9% since this was last reported by Eurostat in 2019, where the Union-wide percentage was 15.1%.

Malta is one of just seven EU countries that reported a percentage of at least 15% or over.

Following Malta, the next smallest countries in the European Union – Cyprus and Luxembourg – recorded percentages of 10.5% and 9.5% respectively.

Eurostat published that at EU level, exposure to pollution, grime, or other environmental issues increased with the degree of urbanisation. In rural areas across the continent, just 6.8% were affected; meanwhile, this share stood at 10.5% in towns and suburbs and 17.2% in cities.