Pollution stops play at Delhi Test match as bowlers struggle to breathe

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Sri Lanka say conditions in smog-hit Indian capital left players vomiting, and some of them took to field wearing face masks

A cricket Test match between India and Sri Lanka was repeatedly interrupted on Sunday with claims players were “continuously vomiting” due to hazardous pollution levels in the Indian capital.

Commentators said it was the first recorded instance of an international match being halted due to the toxic smog that afflicts much of north India year-round but worsens to hazardous levels during winter months.

Airborne pollution levels 15 times the World Health Organisation limits confronted players on the second day of the third Test at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi on Sunday.

As the haze worsened, many Sri Lankan players returned from lunch wearing face masks before complaining to umpires, who halted play for 20 minutes to consult with team doctors and match officials.

The match resumed but was interrupted twice more as bowlers Lahiru Gamage and Suranga Lakmal left the field mid-over with breathing difficulties.

“We had players coming off the field and vomiting,” Sri Lanka coach Nic Pothas told reporters after the match.

“There were oxygen cylinders in the change room. It’s not normal for players to suffer in that way while playing the game.”

Pothas said Lakmal was “continuously vomiting” in the changing room. “I think it’s the first time that everybody has come across that situation,” he said.

“There aren’t too many rules regarding pollution. What we are going to do tomorrow is in the hands of the match referee. They will have meetings tonight to put in some sort of a precedent if it happens like this tomorrow.”

The Indian bowler Kuldeep Yadav was also seen sporting a face mask as he brought drinks to teammates on the field.

Umpires were awaiting Lakmal’s return to the field when Indian skipper, Virat Kohli, elected to declare with his side cruising on 536 runs with three wickets in hand.

The interruptions drew boos from the crowd for Sri Lanka’s opening batsmen as they made their way to the crease, where they played without masks.

The acting president of India’s cricket board was also unimpressed and said he would write to his Sri Lankan counterpart about the incident.

“If 20,000 people in the stands did not have problem and the Indian team did not face any issue, I wonder why the Sri Lankan team made a big fuss?” CK Khanna said.

It is the latest professional-grade match in Delhi to be affected by air pollution after two matches in the domestic Ranji Trophy tournament were abandoned in the city when it was engulfed in smog in November 2016.

Some Indian fans accused the Sri Lankan side of being melodramatic but the cricket writer Ayaz Memon said the episode sent an “unedifying message” about pollution in the city.

Schools were shut and doctors declared a public health emergency in Delhi last month as pollution levels spiked to levels 40 times the WHO safe limits, likened to smoking at least 50 cigarettes in a day.

United Airlines briefly halted flights into the capital and foreign diplomats voiced fears the city could become a “non-family” posting due to the polluted environment.

Doctors warn against physical activity in the smog but around 30,000 runners still participated in an annual half-marathon in the city in November.

Delhi officials have been accused of not preparing for what has become an annual crisis each winter, while the Indian government has played down the urgency and health risks associated with the problem.

The extremely poor air in the city is the result of a combination of road dust, open fires, vehicle exhaust fumes, industrial emissions and the burning of crop residues in neighbouring states. Indian weather agencies also blame dust storms that originate in the Gulf.

via Pollution stops play at Delhi Test match as bowlers struggle to breathe | World news | The Guardian

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London’s ultra-low emission zone could affect twice as many vehicles

Posted on December 1, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

The Mayor of London has launched a public consultation on his plans to double the number of drivers charged with a new levy by expanding the ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ).

Sadiq Khan wants to push the zone’s boundaries out to the North and South Circular roads from October 2021.

The expansion means 100,000 fewer people would live in areas with illegal pollution limits, City Hall said.

Critics say the levy could be the “final straw” for small businesses.

The initial ULEZ will be brought in on 8 April 2019, affecting around 60,000 vehicles a day.

If the zone is made bigger, up to 100,000 cars, 35,000 vans and 3,000 HGVs could be affected.

The most polluting cars, vans and motorbikes will have to pay £12.50 in addition to the congestion charge to drive through central London.

Polluting buses, coaches and HGVs will pay £100.

The charges will apply to petrol cars that do not meet Euro IV standards and diesel vehicles that do not meet Euro VI standards.

The mayor will consider Londoners’ suggested modifications before deciding whether to confirm his proposals.

Mr Khan said: “I am determined to take the bold action needed to protect the public from London’s poisonous, deadly air.”

Why make the ULEZ bigger?

City Hall claims by 2021, the benefits of expanding the ULEZ include:

  • About 100,000 people will no longer live in areas exceeding legal pollution limits
  • 71% reduction in schools in high pollution areas
  • 28% reduction in nitrogen oxide (NOx) road transport emissions in outer London
  • 31% reduction in NOx road transport emissions in inner London

Bridget Fox, from the Campaign for Better Transport, welcomed the move but added: “We need fewer cars, not just newer cars.

“That means continued investment in a comprehensive network of high-quality public transport, and better cycling and walking facilities.”

Meanwhile the Federation of Small Businesses called for Mr Khan to rethink the scheme.

Sue Terpilowski said: “We know that the cost of doing business in London is already at shockingly high levels and for many, these charges will be the final straw.”

via London’s ultra-low emission zone could affect twice as many vehicles – BBC News

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Kenya blames air pollution for rise in respiratory diseases

Posted on November 30, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Air pollution is a major contributor to respiratory diseases in Kenya, a government official disclosed on Wednesday.
Charles Sunkuli, the Principal Secretary Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, said that over eight million Kenyans living in major cities are falling victim due to exposure from harmful emissions from vehicles, industries, use of traditional fuels and kerosene used for cooking and heating.
“Respiratory disease is the leading cause of morbidity in the country currently,” he said during the Second Air Quality annual conference in Nairobi.
Sunkuli said statistics show that diseases of the respiratory system affected 19.9 million people, accounting for 39 percent of the 50.8 million cases of facility based incidence of diseases reported in 2016.
He said 14,300 Kenyans die annually due to conditions attributed to air pollution while plants and agricultural yields are also affected by pollution.
The number of diseases of the respiratory system reported increased by 63 percent over a four year period from 12.2 million in 2012 to 19.9 million in 2016, Sunkuli said.
Sunkuli said the government has initiated a process of developing a National Air Quality Management Strategy (NAQMS) and Action Plan by putting in place an inter-agency committee with different roles and responsibilities in air quality management.
“Kenya may not achieve a clean, secure and sustainable environment by 2030 if the problem of air pollution is not collectively tackled,” Sunkuli said.
Stacey Noel, Africa Center Director, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) urged air quality experts to explore linkages to policy actions to help reduce respiratory diseases in Kenya.
“It is unfortunate that emissions from Nairobi city are far above the World Health Organization (WHO),” Noel added.
She revealed that the organization intends to support policy makers in Africa to apply air quality research findings that has been generated by different scholars.
Kenya’s economy is highly dependent on its natural resource base and climate-sensitive sectors including agriculture, energy transport, tourism and water, making it highly vulnerable to climate variability and change.
Participants at the conference called for an integrated approach whereby air quality issues are addressed together with climate change mitigation and adaptation actions across all development sectors.
The integrated approach to air quality and climate change will also enable Kenya to meets her international obligations, including the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, and the Stockholm Convention, among others.
The conference is expected to identify priority actions to be carried out in 2018 on data and research, policy and stakeholder engagement, education and public awareness.

via Kenya blames air pollution for rise in respiratory diseases – Xinhua | English.news.cn

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Red air pollution alert expands across northern Taiwan

Posted on November 30, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

By Wednesday evening, parts of Taipei City and New Taipei City were also covered by an expanding red pollution alert, meaning the air quality would affect all parts of the population, the Environmental Protection Administration said.

On a warm day which saw temperatures rise to 30 degrees Celsius, initially it was the southern part of Taiwan which suffered the most, as winds from the east were held back by the central mountain range and were unable to disperse pollution in the area.

However, by the early evening, air pollution also reached high levels in Central and Northern Taiwan, reaching the capital, the Central News Agency reported.

Measuring stations all along the west coast of the island recorded red levels, indicating the pollution might affect the health of all residents, not just the elderly, children and patients.

During the evening, parts of Taipei City such as the districts of Wanhua and Datong, and areas in New Taipei City including Banqiao, Linkou, Tucheng, and Yonghe, also recorded red alerts, cable station TVBS reported.

The weather forecast for Thursday could bring relief, as temperatures in the north were expected to drop by about 10 degrees with the wind changing from easterly to northeasterly, reports said.

via Red air pollution alert expands across northern Taiwan | Taiwan News

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Air pollution is making you worse at your job

Posted on November 29, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Poor outdoor air quality is likely to have a negative impact on your job performance, even if you work indoors at a desk, according to a new working paper from researchers at Germany’s Leibniz University and the Columbia Business School.

For years, researchers have been connecting the dots between air pollution and poor job performance: In 2011, for instance, a study found that outdoor agricultural workers’ productivity declined as atmospheric ozone levels increased. A 2014 follow-up study found that indoor blue collar workers were similarly affected by levels of outdoor air pollution.

But at that point it still wasn’t clear whether those findings held for office workers too. Desk work is both indoors and far less physically strenuous than packing fruits and vegetables in a warehouse, so one might reasonably conclude that white collar workers are less vulnerable to the effects of air pollution simply because they’re not breathing in as much air.

But that’s not the case, as the latest study concludes. For the paper, Steffen Meyer and Michaela Pagel took data on stock trades made by over 100,000 private investors in Germany from 2003 to 2015, and paired it with data on air quality, weather and traffic from the closest of over 1,600 monitoring stations.

Why stock trades? “We interpret individual investor trading, an indoor activity that requires some skill and cognitive but no physical exertion, as a proxy for willingness and ability to engage in office work and thereby white-collar productivity,” Meyer and Pagel explain. The stock data is particularly useful because it allowed the researchers to measure human behavior at the individual level.

Outdoor air quality can fluctuate significantly from day-to-day. Meyer and Pagel wanted to know if these fluctuations had any effect on individual investors’ propensity to log in and make a trade on a given day.

To isolate the effect of air pollution, they’d first need to control for a whole host of other factors known to affect trading behavior: day of the week (markets aren’t open every day), day of the year (markets are busier at certain times of year), preceding market returns, changes to daylight saving time, weather and traffic.

With those other factors accounted for, Meyer and Pagel focused on the effect of particulate matter in the air, a measure known as PM10 — particles about 1/7th the thickness of a human hair, small enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs. These particles come from vehicle exhaust, construction dust, industrial sources, wood burning and other sources, and are linked to everything from asthma to general respiratory distress to heart attacks and even death.

They found that a modest increase in outdoor PM10 — 12 micrograms of the pollutant per cubic meter — reduced investors’ propensity to trade by nearly 10 percent. They characterize that effect as “large and significant,” akin to the decrease in trading observed on a nice sunny day versus a cloudy one.

It’s worth pointing out that a 12 microgram increase in PM10 is not a whole lot — on any given day in Germany, levels of the pollutant usually fluctuate between 0 and 40 micrograms, and often more than that.

“To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to test whether air quality affects investor willingness to sit down and trade, controlling for investor-, environment- and market-specific factors in a commonly found low-pollution environment,” the authors conclude.  “The negative effects of pollution on white-collar work productivity are much more severe than previously thought.”

The finding comes at a time when federal authorities in the United States are working to undo certain air quality regulations. In particular, a number of President Trump’s appointees to the Environmental Protection Agency have raised eyebrows for rejecting the broad scientific consensus on the effects of air pollution.

The University of California at Irvine’s Robert Phalen, for instance, believes that “modern air is a little too clean for optimum health.” Michael Honeycutt, the new chairman of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, has written that federal regulations on ozone are unnecessary because “most people spend more than 90 percent of their time indoors.”

Statements like these run contrary to the consensus view of air pollutants as a key public health concern, as represented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health and the EPA.

And as the research out of Germany shows, air pollution outdoors can have a significant impact on your ability to do your indoor job.

via Air pollution is making you worse at your job – The Washington Post

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Delhi Air Pollution: Government Asks Schools To Avoid Outdoor Activities

Posted on November 28, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

As part of the health advisory, the government asked the schools to avoid outdoor assemblies, sports and other physical activities in the early morning hours.

The Delhi Government today asked the schools to avoid outdoor activities after the Air quality in in the national capital, which remained ‘very poor’ for the fourth straight day today, and is set to nosedive further. According to the government, high moisture content and lack of winds have triggered the spike. The Centre said it will take “harsh measures”, if needed, to prevent any repeat of the recent smog episode, reported Press Trust of India.

As part of the health advisory, the government asked the schools to avoid outdoor assemblies, sports and other physical activities in the early morning hours. The government has also advised people to stay indoors as much as possible.

Earlier, the Delhi Government had asked all the schools from the city to remain closed for four days from November 8 to November 12 with pollution in the city became worse.
Though, angry parents accused Delhi government authorities of “playing with children’s health” as schools reopened despite a fresh surge in pollution to emergency levels.

When schools reopened on November 13, after it was closed for four days many schools recorded low attendance owing to the still persisting severe air pollution levels.

The Central Pollution Control Board registered the day’s air quality index (AQI) at 362, 10 units more than yesterday, on a scale of 500, reported PTI. The AQI takes into account levels of suspended particulate matter and gases like nitrogen dioxide.

An AQI between 301-400 is classified as ‘very poor’, which can trigger respiratory illness on prolonged exposure.

via Delhi Air Pollution: Government Asks Schools To Avoid Outdoor Activities

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A 24-hour no-burn alert will take effect at midnight

Posted on November 27, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Due to poor air quality, residents in much of Southern California will be prohibited from lighting wood-burning fires for 24 hours, starting at midnight Monday.

The mandatory no-burn alert was issued by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. On Sunday afternoon, the air quality index in downtown Los Angeles was 119, or “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” according to the air quality district’s website.

From Nov. 1 through the end of February, the air district issues no-burn alerts when fine particulate pollution rises to an unhealthy level, defined as more than 30 micrograms per cubic meter. The alert applies to wood-burning devices such as residential fireplaces, backyard fire pits and wood stoves.

The district oversees air quality in the Orange County and the urban portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, which are among the smoggiest regions in the country.

The no-burn alert does not apply to the Riverside County desert or to properties above 3,000 feet in elevation. Low-income households are exempt, as are households where wood-burning is the sole source of heat.

High levels of air pollution can cause eye, nose and throat irritation, lung inflammation and breathing difficulties, as well as increase the risk of bronchitis, asthma attacks and heart attacks, according to the air district.

via A 24-hour no-burn alert will take effect at midnight – LA Times

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air pollution in Delhi: Delhi-NCR air quality still very poor as stubble burning reaches Delhi

Posted on November 24, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

The air quality in Delhi and NCR sees no scope of improvement, as despite orders and monitoring, the practice of stubble burning was reported from Delhi itself on Thursday.

Track the pollution level in your city

As stubble burning increases and spreads across districts of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, satellite images showed cases of crop-residue burning in north Delhi towards Haryana border where farming community resides.

While the incidents of residue burning escaped the monitoring of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), which is responsible to check such cases within Delhi, officials say that appropriate action will be taken.

“We have not noticed any such cases and it should not be there… however we will check the incidents… If satellite images are showing this, then there is possibility of some garbage burning,” an official of DPCC told IANS.

As the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) expects the air quality to deteriorate further due to fog formation, weather analysts react predict change in the wind direction and type, from dry to moist, towards November 28 to further worsen the situation here.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on Thursday, the average concentration of major pollutant PM2.5 or particles with diameter less than 2.5 micrometer at 7 p.m. in Delhi-NCR combined was 167, while in Delhi it was 172 as against a safe limit of 25 microgramme per cubic meters as per international standards and 60 units as per national standards.


The average air quality recorded by 25 active monitoring stations of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and the CPCB was “very poor”, except in Rajasthan’s Alwar, where the air quality was “moderate to poor”.


Meanwhile, with PM2.5 values over 250 units, Ghaziabad, Bhiwadi and Delhi Technical University in north Delhi recorded “severe plus” or “emergency” Air Quality Index (AQI).


According to the wether analyst, a western disturbance is likely around November 27 over Rajasthan and Haryana. However, this cyclonic circulation will only worsen the situation unlike the case of last week when the drizzling in Delhi-NCR due to the western disturbance bought the pollution levels down.


“The present dry and cold North-westerly winds coming from Punjab and Haryana have moderate speed today, which are suppose to change into moist south-westerly winds which will be of very low speed. Due to this the additional emissions collecting in Delhi will not dissipate while the mist and haze formation would further drop the air-quality,” said Mahesh Palawat, director of private weather forecasting agency Skymet.

via air pollution in Delhi: Delhi-NCR air quality still very poor as stubble burning reaches Delhi | Delhi News – Times of India

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