This has been a bad year for Italians in large cities who like to breathe.<br />The air pollution is not just bothersome, it is also becoming deadly.<br />More than 30,000 people die each year in Italy because of health complications tied to bad air quality, according to a recent study by the Department of Epidemiology of the Lazio Region Health Service.<br />Now, in what feels a lot like a panic response, cities are banning everything from Vespas to pizza ovens to try to bring the air quality under control.<br />In Milan, all private non-electric vehicles are banned from the city streets from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm for three days, starting Monday; in Rome, only those with license plates ending in even numbers can be used on Monday and those with uneven numbers can circulate Tuesday for nine hours of the day.
