If you’re from B.C. and clean air is what you’re after, you don’t have to travel too far to find some of the cleanest in North America and the world.
HouseFresh, a publication dedicated to advocating for clean air for everyone, “without being duped into buying overpriced” products, has compiled a list of places around the world that have the cleanest air.
Two B.C. spots ranked among the best that North America has to offer, and the outright best in Canada: Prince Rupert and Powell River. If we compared these B.C. spots to cities from other continents, Prince Rupert and Powell River still rank highly on a global scale.
HouseFresh sourced the annual average PM2.5 concentration in over 8,800 locations worldwide. It then examined towns and cities with populations exceeding 10,000 to identify the best and worst in every country and continent.
Prince Rupert has the lowest average PM2.5 concentration in Canada, at 2.2 µg/m³. That’s good for fourth best in North America, followed by Powell River, which is fifth best, with an average of PM2.5 concentration of 2.4 µg/m³.
Both B.C. cities have a combined population of around 30,000 people.
On the opposite end, the Alberta town of Whitecourt has the worst air quality in North America.
HouseFresh
Despite these generous numbers, air quality in the province can change rapidly due to wildfires. Earlier this year, despite generally having very high average air quality, Vancouver experienced the worst air quality among major cities in the world on Sept. 3, due to nearby wildfires.
Later in the month, another fire, this one in Washington State, also forced Vancouver down the rankings as the air quality degraded.
If you’re interested in learning more about the air quality in a specific B.C. region, the Government of Canada monitors air quality by province.
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