Severe air pollution chokes Mongolia amid harsh winters

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

With thousands of families burning coal to survive in arctic temperatures, Mongolia is now home to the most poisonous air on the planet.

Air pollution in China and India often makes international headlines, but in one country air quality is even worse.

With thousands of families burning coal to survive in arctic temperatures, Mongolia is now home to the most poisonous air on the planet.

For Baasanjargal Batbaatar,  a single mother of four, coal brings the only warmth they can afford. But it’s coming at a price.

“The first time I almost lost my daughter was last winter. I went to the next room to feed my son and when I returned, she was suffocating. Her eyes rolled back. The diagnosis: asthma,” Batbaatar said.

The hazardous haze is mainly caused by household stoves making Mongolia’s air pollution up to 80 times the World Health Organization’s safe limit.

Children and newborns are worst hit.

“A recent study indicated that during the winter of 2014-2015, there was a five-fold increase in the rate of still-births, with a near perfect correlation to air pollution,” said Alex Heikens, resident representative of UNICEF in Mongolia.

via Severe air pollution chokes Mongolia amid harsh winters

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Air pollution around conception tied to birth defects

Posted on January 4, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

Women who breathe polluted air during the month right before or after they get pregnant may be more likely to have babies with birth defects, a U.S. recent study suggests.

Researchers examined data on birth defects for almost 290,000 infants born in Ohio from 2006 to 2010, matching these records with air pollution measurements near mothers’ homes.

They focused on what’s known as fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter that’s found in traffic exhaust and can include dust, dirt, soot, and smoke.

Higher levels of PM 2.5 exposure in the month before and after pregnancy were associated with a small but statistically meaningful increased risk of congenital birth defects, the study found.

“Our study indicates that there are several particularly vulnerable exposure periods near the time of conception, both before and after conception, in which exposure to higher levels of particulate matter in the air may pose an increased chance for a birth defect to occur,” said senior study author Dr. Emily DeFranco of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio.

The impact of particulate matter on birth defects varied based on how far women lived from air quality monitoring stations.

Overall, when researchers looked at every mother in the study, women were exposed to average PM 2.5 levels of 13.79 micrograms per cubic meter of air (ug/m3) during the months just before and after they conceived. This included women who lived within 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) of an air quality monitoring station.

When researchers looked at a subset of women who lived within 5 kilometers of a monitoring station, they found that for every 10 ug/m3 increase in PM 2.5 levels women experienced during the month after conception, their babies were 19 percent more to be born with birth defects.

Certain types of birth defects appeared more strongly connected to air pollution, including abdominal malformations and what’s known as hypospadias, an abnormality in boys that occurs when the opening of the urethra doesn’t develop on the tip of the penis and instead forms on the shaft or on the scrotum.

At the time of the study, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard for particulate matter levels was 15 ug/m3, while the current standard is 12 ug/m3, researchers note in the Journal of Pediatrics.

“Our study results support the importance of public health education and initiatives to minimize population exposure to airborne pollutants,” DeFranco said.

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how mothers’ exposure to air pollution might influence the odds of birth defects in their babies. The study also only examined air pollution near women’s homes, and not necessarily near where they worked or spent the most time outdoors.

Even so, it makes sense for women to limit their exposure to air pollution whenever possible whether by avoiding outdoor commutes during rush hour or concentrating on indoor air quality, said Dr. Shruthi Mahalingaiah, an environmental health researcher at Boston University who wasn’t involved in the study.

“If you live in areas of the world with high levels of ambient air pollution, you may consider installing appropriate air or ventilation systems so that your in-home air quality is excellent,” Mahalingaiah advised. “Ideally, working together with policy makers, companies, and nations to reduce emissions and innovate around sequestering current levels of emissions would be a goal.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2E47lqR Journal of Pediatrics, online December 10, 2017.

via Air pollution around conception tied to birth defects – Business Insider

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Central, southern Taiwan blanketed by air pollution

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

The air quality in parts of central and southern Taiwan was generally rated “unhealthy” Wednesday because of a lack of wind to disperse atmospheric pollutants, according to the Environmental Protection Administration’s Taiwan Air Quality Monitoring Network.

As of noon, the Air Quality Index (AQI) flashed red, meaning the air was “unhealthy” for the general public, in Nanzi, Fuxing, Renwu, Qianjin, Qianzhen and Xiaogang in Kaohsiung and the island of Xiaoliuqiu in Pingtung, according to the network (http://taqm.epa.gov.tw/taqm/en/).

Meanwhile, it flashed orange in Toufen, Miaoli and at 20 monitoring stations from Taichung to Pingtung County, indicating that the air quality was “unhealthy for sensitive groups” such as young children, the elderly and people with a chronic disease.

In the rest of western Taiwan and all of eastern Taiwan, the air quality was rated as either good or fair, the monitoring data showed.

Considering that the AQI at one-third of the monitoring stations in Kaohsiung and Pingtung flashed red or orange alerts, state-owned Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) was considering reducing the output of the coal-fired Hsinta Power Plant in Kaohsiung later that day, according to the EPA.

The EPA’s AQI takes into account ozone, PM2.5 and PM10 particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitric oxide concentrations in the air.

via Central, southern Taiwan blanketed by air pollution | Society | FOCUS TAIWAN – CNA ENGLISH NEWS

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Poland’s ‘airpocalypse’ rivals New Delhi smog

Posted on January 2, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

In one city, residents burn garbage to heat their homes and the local mine’s coal supplies are almost exhausted.

You don’t need to use an alarm clock on Miners’ Day in the Polish city of Katowice – the 21-piece colliery band does the job on its early-morning march around the town.

It is a frigid, finger-numbing tradition and they have been doing it this way for decades.

However, band members know it could be the last time they participate in a Miners’ Day parade. The managers of the state-owned Wieczorek say around 1,500 employees will be laid off next year.

I stopped the band leader, Andrzej Pisarzowski, for a chat and he looked cold and anxious.

“The mine is closing down – probably in March – and when that happens our band may be finished too,” he tells me.

“The mine pays for us and without them we’re going to have to stop.”

Miners and their families filed into Katowice’s cavernous church for a service of thanksgiving but it felt more like a funeral at times. They have been mining coal at Wieczorek for more than 200 years, but the owners say supplies are now exhausted.

Environmentalists are certainly keen to stop production. This region is one of the most polluted in Europe – in fact, a recent study showed that 33 of the 50 dirtiest cities in the European Union were in Poland.

The EU’s environmental agency estimated that bad air caused 45,000 premature deaths in the country in 2016.

Outside the church, local residents seemed to accept they were facing a perfect storm.

“Of course, I think everyone is worried,” said pit manager Arek Lubaski.

“It’s hard times now – for mining, especially for mining. The industry has managed to survive over the years but the market is bad. Mining won’t last long.”

Miner’s daughter Zenata Fonfara said she was still hoping someone would come up with a solution.

She mused: “If we could modernise coal, if we could make it better for the environment, then maybe we could make it work?”

Last winter, the country experienced a so-called “airpocalypse”, as coal-burning homes and power-stations produced levels of pollution more commonly associated with New Delhi or Beijing.

But that did not seem to unduly trouble the country’s right-wing Law and Justice government. It backs the coal industry and refuses to invest in renewable energy.

Last year the health minister labelled air pollution “a theoretical problem.”

As Polish mines shut, state owned energy-traders have been importing coal from Russia – and they took their first shipment from the US last month.

The job of trying to reduce air pollution has fallen to local authorities – like the Katowice city council. It offers a scheme where residents can swap old coal furnaces for gas-burning units – but locals have to pay the costs up front and wait for the council to reimburse them.

Poland faces a serious air quality crisis. That much was made clear to us when we visited a spot near a maternity hospital on Katowice’s outskirts.

Residents burnt coal and garbage to heat their homes and a thick, gloopy smoke filled the air.

via Poland’s ‘airpocalypse’ rivals New Delhi smog

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Mongolian capital sees severe air pollution

Posted on December 28, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

The Mongolian capital city of Ulan Bator on Wednesday saw solid particles in the air reaching dangerous levels, with the most-polluted area registering an amount almost 13 times above the safety level set by the World Health Organization (WTO).

There were “catastrophic pollution” at five locations in Ulan Bator, including the Bayankhoshuu slum district at 898 mg per cubic meter, and the Tolgoit slum district at 513 mg per cubic meter, according to the country’s national agency for for meteorology and environment monitoring.

The city is no stranger to severe air pollution during winter in the past two decades, given its unfavorable meteorological conditions for pollutants to dissipate, and the heavy-dependence on coal in the large Ger areas surrounding the metropolitan region.

More than 800,000 residents, over half of Ulan Bator’s population, live in Ger districts. Most of them came from provinces to find a job in the capital city of Mongolia.

Tight on money, some of them burn plastics and old tires to stay warm and to cook their meals during the long winter.

Since 2000, the Mongolian government, supported by various international organizations including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, has spent millions of dollars on programs to reduce air pollution.

via Mongolian capital sees severe air pollution – Xinhua | English.news.cn

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Air pollution may kill more Africans than HIV/AIDS

Posted on December 21, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

AIDS and malaria epidemics receive much attention from international health organizations, but a sneakier killer is on the loose in Africa. Air pollution may now be the continent’s number one killer, according to a forthcoming study. Susanne Bauer, an Earth Institute affiliate who models atmospheric composition at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, presented these findings at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union on Thursday.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the widespread practice of burning crop residues helps to clear stubble from fields and fertilize the soil. “It’s really, really cheap to treat your fields after the harvesting season with fires,” explained Bauer during her presentation. But where there’s fire, there’s smoke. The practice releases fine particles into the air that can harm human health, and sub-Saharan Africa alone produces about a third of the planet’s burning biomass emissions. Bauer and her colleagues set out to learn more about the particles’ origins, chemistry, and health effects.

The Biggest Killer

The team used a climate model and satellite data to map where the biomass burning takes place. They tracked where the smoke from those fires ends up, and studied the distribution of gases and harmful particulates that come from other sources, such as industry and nature. Then they fed the data into an economic health model to estimate how many lives each type of pollution would shorten. The model takes into account factors such as population density, age distribution, and risk factors from other diseases.

Bauer and her colleagues calculated that the largest portion of Africa’s air pollution-related deaths came from a surprising source. “The biggest killer on that continent is nature, because of the gigantic dust sources around the Sahara,” said Bauer.

Particles smaller than 2.5 microns—about half as wide as a red blood cell—can lodge themselves in human airways. Once inside, they increase a person’s risk of lung cancer, heart attack, lung disease, stroke, heart disease, and more.

The team calculated that Saharan dust and other natural pollutants cause 1.2 million Africans to die prematurely every year. That’s more than AIDS, which kills around 760,000 Africans per year, on average.

In 2015, AIDS was unseated as the leading cause of death in Africa. It was replaced by lower respiratory infections, such as pneumonia and bronchitis, which claim one million African lives per year.

By these estimates, air pollution from the Sahara is the number one killer in Africa. In addition, studies suggest that some types of air pollution are linked to respiratory infections.

Other Dangers

Industrial and urban emissions were the second deadliest source of air pollution. They claim 324,000 lives per year, according to the team’s estimates. Gases emitted by vehicles and factories—such as ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides and sulfates—as well as soot and organic carbon were mostly to blame. This manmade pollution ranks between meningitis and malaria in Africa’s leading causes of death.

Although burning forests and fields created the largest amount of air pollutants in the study, the practice takes place in areas where population density is low. As a result, biomass burning ranked as the third largest source of air pollution-related deaths. It causes an estimated 70,000 premature deaths per year.

One weakness of the study, said Bauer, is that she and her colleagues assumed all types of fine particles had equal toxicity. That may not be the case in reality. However, scientists don’t know much about each particle’s specific effects on human death rates.

Growing Awareness

“I think it’s very striking that air pollution’s overall mortality is the same order of magnitude as AIDS,” said Bauer. “There are a lot of initiatives to fight AIDS, to fight malaria, but air pollution is certainly under-addressed on that continent.”

Part of the reason for its obscurity may be that premature deaths from air pollution are hard to pinpoint. You can’t diagnose them like you can for malaria and AIDS. The negative effects of air pollution can manifest in a variety of ways, and exacerbate conditions that can have multiple causes.

“I don’t think society understood how dangerous it is,” she said.

The team calculated that interventions—such as reducing pollution from industrial sources, improving land management techniques, distributing masks, and informing people about the dangers of dust storms—could save 350 thousand lives each year.

Tackling air pollution in Africa will not be easy. Many nations already face political, economic, and social challenges, on top of other known health problems. But Bauer says awareness about the dangers of air pollution is growing, and that’s the first step toward fixing the problem.

via Air pollution may kill more Africans than HIV/AIDS

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Salt Particles From Afghanistan Are Causing Severe Air Pollution In Delhi, And It’s Gonna Stay

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

The pollution is Delhi is touching an all-time high because of Afghanistan and there is a scientific research to support this argument. According to a new study, air-borne particles from the salt mines of Afghanistan are pushing up the levels of air pollutants in Delhi.

At first, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) team had thought that the wind might be carrying sea salt from either the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea. Subsequently, the source of the pollutants was traced to Afghanistan.

A study by the CPCB scientists, including its air laboratory chief Dipankar Saha, has found that about 11 per cent of PM2.5 in Delhi are salt particles.

However, since the study was undertaken during the winter months, the scientists ruled out the possibility of the particles being carried from the sea as the wind direction was generally from the north or north-west during this period.

The scientists also found the presence of metals such as chromium and copper in the city’s air, which Saha said were being emitted by the electroplating industries in Haryana.

via Salt Particles From Afghanistan Are Causing Severe Air Pollution In Delhi, And It’s Gonna Stay – Indiatimes.com

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Tehran’s football matches cancelled due to air pollution

Posted on December 19, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Two football matches in Hazfi Cup were postponed because of air pollution in Tehran, capital of Iran.

Esteghlal match against Iranjavan Bushehr was cancelled on Monday and Iran football officials also postponed a match between Persepolis and Sanat Naft in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium.

No new date for the fixtures has been announced.

Iran shut primary schools in the capital and other parts of the country on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday due to choking levels of air pollution.

A blanket of smog has covered neighbourhoods in the capital in the past few days. Authorities also ordered mines and cement factories in Tehran province to close and reinforced regular traffic restrictions in the capital’s centre.

In 2012, pollution contributed to the premature deaths of 4,500 people in Tehran and about 80,000 in the country, the health ministry said.

via Tehran’s football matches cancelled due to air pollution

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