Lumbini chokes as pollution levels cross safe limits  

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Data analysis of air quality monitoring stations set up last year in five places across the country shows that Lumbini is the most polluted city followed by Chitwan, Ratnapark (Kathmandu), Pulchowk (Lalitpur) and Dhulikhel (Kavrepalanchok).

Data collected from the air quality monitoring stations between October and February showed presence of PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) in Lumbini five times higher than the World Health Organisation standard of 25 microgram per cubic metre (ug/m3) in a period of 24 hours. Nepal’s national air pollution standard is 40 ug/m3.

For the month of January, PM2.5 in Lumbini was measured at 173.035 ug/m3 followed by 113.32 ug/m3 in Chitwan and 109.08 ug/m3 in Ratnapark of Kathmandu.

“Brick kilns and cement factories in the Lumbini-Bhairahawa Corridor produce pollutants,” said Arnico Panday, senior atmospheric scientist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). Coal burning and burning of other stuff like tyres and tubes add to the problem.”

In 2013, 62 percent of air pollution in Lumbini was due to the flow of toxic air originated in India, while 24 percent of air pollution was created within Nepal. Polluted air from Bangladesh and Pakistan also played a crucial role in increasing pollution in the Tarai, according to data maintained by ICIMOD.

There are around 1,000 brick kilns in Nepal and around 30,000 in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, two large bordering states in India. Toxic fumes produced by these brick kilns are collected in the skies and the wind blowing from those places bring about more fumes to the trans-border area making it tremendously polluted.

Biomass, garbage burning, agricultural residue fires, forest fires are other agents that add to air pollution.

As far as Kathmandu is concerned, air pollution varies depending upon the time of the day.

Pollution level during early mornings and evenings in Kathmandu shoots up dramatically, while it decreased in the afternoons. Also, Kathmandu tends to choke on pollution during winter months.

According to Shankar Prasad Poudel, senior divisional chemist at the Department of Education, the government is monitoring 30 brick kilns of the Valley to analyse their contribution to air pollution in the Valley.

The ongoing road-widening driving and Melamchi pipeline laying work to have been contributing to the Capial’s air pollution.

Source: Lumbini chokes as pollution levels cross safe limits – National – The Kathmandu Post

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Red alert: Medellin air pollution kills 6 times more people than guns

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Breathing in Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city, has become such a health hazard that the local government on Wednesday declared a red alert.

The red alert seeks to lower smog levels that reportedly cost eight lives a day, more than six times the number of daily homicides in the city.

Medellin lies in the Valley of Aburra and, with the arrival of the cloudy rainy season, has slowly become covered in a fatal smog, causing respiratory problems among many in the city.

According to a study by epidemiologist Elkin Martinez, last year some 3,000 people died of causes related to air pollution, or one every three hours.

So far this year, the city declared an orange alert four times, but to no effect. With the arrival of the rainy season, the administration of Mayor Federico Gutierrez was forced to raise this to red.

The red alert allows the government to issue special decrees, banning heavy transport during peak hours.

Additionally, schools were told to stop all physical and outdoor activity to prevent the city’s children from breathing in too much poisonous air.

According to Gutierrez, the number of cars in the city has doubled since 2005, while the number of motorcycles grew a staggering 511% since that year, saturating the city’s ability to rid itself of the poisonous exhumes.

The mayor announced he would be preparing measures to eventually rid the city of small, privately-run buses that often use turbo chargers to be able to enter the neighborhoods located on the steep slopes of the Aburra valley.

In order to lower the current pollution level, the mayoral decree seeks an immediate reduction of 30%, or 450,000 vehicles, of the city’s motorized traffic.

The city had already asked state-run oil company Ecopetrol to deliver cleaner fuel and is now asking the national government to force the oil company to improve the quality of refined gasoline.

The red alert is expected to last at least until Saturday.

Source: Red alert: Medellin air pollution kills 6 times more people than guns

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Here are some of the world’s worst cities for air quality 

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Trying to get away from airborne ammonia? Don’t linger in Lagos or Delhi. If you’re bent on avoiding ozone, you might want to add Beijing, Karachi, and Los Angeles to your list. These are some of the cities with the world’s worst air quality, according to a new analysis of four major gasses associated with air pollution: ammonia, formic acid, methanol, and ozone. The findings could help scientists better understand how geography and other local conditions play a role in determining air quality.

“It is critical to better understand what is contributing to air pollution … to protect growing populations from negative public health impacts,” says Miriam Marlier, an environmental scientist at Columbia University not involved in the study.

Poor air quality can lead to a host of health problems, including respiratory and cardiovascular disease. But measuring air quality is hard: Many cities—especially those in developing countries—lack the ground- and aircraft-based sensors and the trained personnel to repeatedly monitor conditions over large areas.

So Karen Cady-Pereira, a remote sensing scientist at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, an environmental consulting firm in Lexington, Massachusetts, decided to use a satellite to study air pollution above 18 of the world’s “megacities,” metropolitan areas with 10 million or more people. Since 2013, she and her team have measured levels of ammonia, formic acid, methanol, and ozone with an instrument called the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer aboard NASA’s Aura satellite, which studies Earth’s atmosphere. Aura passes over each megacity every 16 days at approximately the same local time. That’s an important point, since air quality varies over the course of a day. Observations are also collected under the same atmospheric conditions, which means that data across cities can be accurately compared.

The team has found that Karachi, Pakistan, holds the world’s title for ozone. Of the nearly 300 measurements collected over 1 year, roughly a third exceeded what the researchers considered a “harmful” threshold for ozone, which can lead to smog. Ozone is high in other cities as well. But when it comes to ammonia, a gas that helps form airborne particles that can trigger lung disease, some cities stand out: Kolkata, India, exceeds the “harmful” threshold 47.1% of the time, Dhaka, Bangladesh, exceeds it 51.6% of the time, and Delhi exceeds it 73.5% of the time. Ammonia, which comes from livestock excrement and fertilizer, is more common in cities surrounded by lots of agricultural activity.

But the researchers are only just beginning to analyze their results, and they’re continuing to collect data on the other gases. So far, they’ve come to one conclusion: that biomass burning, including forest fires, trash burning, and agricultural crop clearing using fire, is responsible for a seasonal uptick in harmful gases in Lagos, Nigeria, and Mexico City, they plan to report in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The team also found that levels of ozone, ammonia, methanol, and formic acid—higher levels of which are associated with poorer air quality—all increased above Mexico City every year between March and June. That’s prime time for burning cropland to clear it for planting. Data from their study supports a link. One extreme pollution event in early May 2013 coincided with fires burning to the southwest of the city. Lagos, which has far higher levels of all four gases than Mexico City, is a booming metropolis grappling with an unreliable electrical grid and limited options for waste disposal. “Anybody who can afford it has a diesel generator, which is extremely polluting,” Cady-Pereira says. “And people burn a lot of trash just to get rid of it.”

Geography also plays a role. In Mexico City, mountains to the city’s north, east, and west act like a natural barricade against gases and particles from distant fires. In Lagos, intense sunlight near the equator drives reactions that produce ozone. Furthermore, sea breezes that repeatedly blow in and out above the coastal city trap pollutants.

Cady-Pereira and her team are looking for more patterns in their growing data set. Among those they’re currently exploring: unusually high levels of ammonia above Buenos Aires. She says that the large meat-slaughtering industry there may be the culprit. “[These maps] bring up a lot of things we could explore in more depth,” Cady-Pereira says.

Source: Here are some of the world’s worst cities for air quality | Science | AAAS

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Renault and Jeep diesel cars are ‘biggest culprits for toxic fumes’, Which? car tests show 

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

More than 270 diesel cars were tested to find out which have the highest emissions

Diesel cars made by Renault and Jeep are the biggest culprits emitting the most toxic fumes into Britain’s air, according to a study by Which?

Cars from leading manufacturers around the world were tested by the consumer group for their levels of deadly nitrogen oxide emissions.

The results showed huge variations across the industry with Which? warning that car makers have “a long way to go” in reducing toxic gases from their models.

Thousands of people in London die every year as a result of particulate pollution which is caused largely by diesel engines, leading Mayor Sadiq Khan to introduce a new T-charge from October.

Earlier this year pollution in the capital hit the highest “black alert” with calls to keep children inside buildings to avoid the health risks of breathing toxic air.

Which? analysed 278 diesel cars from car manufacturers around the world over four years between 2012 and 2016.

The consumer group tested the cars’ average nitrogen oxide emissions alongside official Euro 5 and Euro 6 limits, directives from the European Union which define how much gas exhausts can emit.

The results showed Nissan’s emission levels were average while the 33 BMW and BMW-owned Mini cars in the experiment had some of the lowest emissions for diesel vehicles.

But Jeep produced some of the highest emissions, with the two cars which were tested emitting on average nine and a half times the Euro 5 limit.

All 16 Renault cars which were tested had nitrogen oxide emissions four times higher for Euro 5 and nine times above Euro 6 limits.

But the watchdog found that despite the alarmingly high emission rates among some manufacturers, modern diesel cars are overall “cleaner than ever”.

Which? magazine editor Richard Headland said: “While our tests show that some car manufacturers are making progress on reducing the amount of toxic emissions from their models, many have a long way to go in cleaning up their act.

“We hope that the improved official tests being brought in later this year will more clearly name and shame those manufacturers that are failing to meet their obligation to lower emissions.”

The official Euro 5 limit is set at 0.18g/km and 0.08g/km for Euro 6.

Which? is still continuing to test VW Group cars, which include VW, Audi, Seat and Skoda, but the ones they have tested already had “some of the lowest measured NOx averages”.

A Renault spokeswoman said all Renault and Dacia vehicles conform to the current standards, adding: “Groupe Renault (the brands Renault and Dacia) has been aware that there remains significant potential for improvement regarding the release of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in real use conditions.

“Since mid-2015, Groupe Renault has committed to improve the performance of its anti-pollution systems with the objective of reducing the gap between real driving emissions and standards based emissions.

“As a result, Groupe Renault has defined a range of actions that have been applied gradually in the production of Diesel Euro 6b vehicles since July 2016.”

“Furthermore, customers who have already taken delivery of a Diesel Euro 6b vehicle will soon be able to benefit from these actions, free of charge, by booking a service with a Groupe Renault dealer. A letter detailing this is in the process of being sent to these customers.”

Nissan said in a statement: “We are committed to upholding the law and meeting regulations in every market where we operate.

“Specifically in Europe, all our vehicles sold in Europe meet the Euro 5/6 emission standards. This report, which looks at the variation between lab and ‘real world’ conditions, shows significant variances for most brands tested.”

Jeep was contacted for comment.

Source: Renault and Jeep diesel cars are ‘biggest culprits for toxic fumes’, Which? car tests show | London Evening Standard

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Winter ozone problem returns to western Wyoming gas fields

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Itchy eyes and scratchy throats blamed on high levels of wintertime ozone have returned to western Wyoming’s gas patch for the first time in six years, and so too has finger-pointing over who’s responsible for fouling the air.

The ozone results from atmospheric chemical reactions that occur in just the right mix of cold temperatures, sunlight, snow on the ground and air pollution.

The Upper Green River Basin is home to two of the largest onshore U.S. gas fields, the Jonah Field and Pinedale Anticline operated by Jonah Energy, QEP Resources and Ultra Petroleum. The companies have cut emissions of volatile organic compounds by almost 7,000 tons and nitrogen oxides by almost 2,000 tons since 2008, according to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.

Those reductions in ozone-forming pollutants, coupled with a decline in drilling since last time ozone was a problem, leads John Robitaille with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming to suggest that other pollution sources, such as wood stoves, are to blame.

“We don’t currently know how many people were out warming up their vehicles for long periods of time in the mornings. There are multiple things going on out there that I think need to be looked at,” Robitaille said Monday.

The focus needs to remain on the gas industry, said Pinedale resident Elaine Crumpley with the group Citizens United for Responsible Energy Development.

“Industry has made some changes and that’s well and good. It isn’t, obviously, enough,” Crumpley said. “They have to come up with some solutions here.”

This winter, average ozone levels in the Upper Green River Basin exceeded the federal health-risk standard of 70 parts per billion for the first time since 2011. Eight-hour averages topped the standard on seven days — Jan. 18 and 19; Feb. 14, 15 and 17; and March 3 and 4 — though this year’s peak of 85 ppb was well below the 2011 high of 123 ppb.

Ozone above 100 ppb is more consistent with a big city with air pollution problems than a rural area known for migrating big game and a world-famous trout stream. Other gas-drilling hotspots in the West including Utah’s Uintah Basin have wintertime ozone problems.

This winter’s resurgence in Wyoming happened despite largely voluntary industry efforts in cooperation with state regulators, who declare “ozone action days” when forecasts call for ozone-forming conditions. Companies respond with steps including cutting back on nonessential truck traffic.

“We’ve been able to reduce the emissions that lead to ozone. And that’s a good step forward but we’re not done, we realize that. We’re still going to focus on this and try to curb those precursor emissions,” Wyoming DEQ spokesman Keith Guille said.

Snow cover helps ozone to form by reflecting sunlight back into the atmosphere. A record 15 inches or more of snow covered the basin through much of January and February.

Locals say they go cross-country skiing only to feel congested and wheezy, problems they can’t definitively connect to the ozone or a virus. But a cough that afflicted Pinedale resident Dave Hohl during the ozone six years ago was back again this winter, he said.

“I can’t be really sure that it was ozone,” said Hohl. “It seems like a little more than a coincidence.”

Source: Winter ozone problem returns to western Wyoming gas fields – San Francisco Chronicle

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Four select committees launch joint inquiry into UK air pollution crisis 

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

MPs say unprecedented investigation will study harm caused by toxic air and scrutinise government efforts to tackle it

MPs from four influential committees are coming together to launch a joint inquiry into the scale and impact of the UK’s air pollution crisis.

In an unusual development, the environmental audit committee, environment, food and rural affairs committee, health committee and transport committee will hold four sessions to consider mounting scientific evidence on the health and environmental effects of toxic air.

Dr Sarah Wollaston, the health committee chair, said poor air quality was “affecting the health of millions of people across the UK”.

“Our joint inquiry will include an examination of the scale of the harm caused and the action necessary to tackle it,” she added.

Last month, the Guardian revealed the risk to children’s health posed by air pollution, identifying 802 educational institutions in London where pupils as young as three are exposed to illegal levels of air pollution.

The government says toxic air causes up to 50,000 early deaths – 9,000 of them in the capital – and costs the country £27.5bn each year.

The government’s own statistics show 38 out of 43 UK “air quality zones” breach legal limits for air pollution and last year the high court ruled ministers must cut the illegal levels of NO2 in dozens of towns and cities because their current policies to improve air quality were so poor they were unlawful.

The government has to announce its new plans before 24 April and the inquiry will examine whether these proposals go far enough to cut pollution “not only to meet legal limits but also to deliver maximum health and environmental benefits”.

Mary Creagh, chair of the environmental audit committee, said: “The UK courts have twice found that the government has failed to deal with our air pollution problem properly. Now ministers will face unprecedented scrutiny in parliament to ensure they finally step up to the mark to ensure adults, and children in particular, do not have their health damaged by filthy air.”

Much of the most dangerous pollution comes from diesel vehicles and there is growing pressure on the government to introduce a diesel scrappage scheme to encourage people to swap polluting diesel vehicles for cleaner alternatives.

Louise Ellman, chair of the transport committee, said the UK economy depends on an “efficient and flexible transport system” but added: “Emissions from vehicles are a significant problem and the standards that governments have relied on have not delivered the expected reductions. We will be asking what more can be done to increase the use of cleaner vehicles as well as to encourage the use of sustainable modes of transport.”

Neil Parish, chair of the environment, food and rural affairs committee, said the joint inquiry was unprecedented.

“The solutions to cleaning up our air are not the responsibility of just one minister. That’s why we have taken the unprecedented task of convening four select committees so we can scrutinise the government’s efforts from every angle and look for holistic solutions that are good for health, transport and the environment.”

Source: Four select committees launch joint inquiry into UK air pollution crisis | Environment | The Guardian

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Parkinson’s Risk Boosted by Even Short-Term Air Pollution, Korean Study Says

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

Even brief exposure to air pollution can increase the risk of Parkinson’s disease and other neurological diseases, concludes a Korean study.

The study, “Short-term air pollution exposure aggravates Parkinson’s disease in a population-based cohort,” appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.

Various environmental factors contribute to the pathology of Parkinson’s, but air pollution is apparently crucial in triggering inflammation and oxidative stress — two damaging mechanisms associated with neuronal loss in this disease affecting the central nervous system (CNS).

“Recent experimental studies have shown that air pollutants cause neuro-inflammation, CNS oxidative stress, dopamine neuron damage, blood-brain barrier damage and cerebrovascular impairment, which indicate potential biological pathways for neurological diseases,” researchers wrote.

In fact, scientists have linked the rising incidence of Parkinson’s to annual increases in airborne metal concentrations, very long-term exposure (more than 20 years) to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and yearly increases in small-size air pollutants such as PM10 and PM2.5 among non-smoking women.

Whether short-term air pollution exposure, for days or weeks, can also aggravate Parkinson’s remained elusive.

To find out, researchers used medical records of the National Health Insurance Service–National Sample Cohort to investigate the association of short-term exposure to air pollution components such as PM2.5, NO2, sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3) and carbon monoxide (CO) with the incidence of Parkinson’s aggravation in South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, between 2002 and 2013.

Aggravation cases were those in which patients had emergency hospital admissions due to Parkinson’s. Researchers also compared pollutants concentrations on case and control days.

The results showed a significant association between an eight-day exposure to increases in air pollution in PM2.5, NO2 and CO and Parkinson’s aggravation. This association was stronger in women and older patients (aged 65–74), and during cold season, although not significantly.

In South Korea, the number of Parkinson’s patients is rising rapidly with 24,300 new cases between 2010 and 2014. In 2014 alone, the disease cost Koreans some $222 million.

“Overall, the findings of this study, involving a representative population-based cohort, suggest that short-term exposure to air pollution may increase the risk of [Parkinson’s disease] aggravation,” researchers concluded. “Our results can serve as the basis for further studies on the short-term association between air pollution and neurological diseases, and for policy-making to mitigate air pollution and reduce neurodegenerative health effects in our aging society.”

Source: Parkinson’s Risk Boosted by Even Short-Term Air Pollution, Korean Study Says

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Cars Are Killing Us 

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Respro® UK Ltd

About 3,000 Australians die prematurely each year from outdoor air pollution, and our cars are a major component of that pollution, particularly in traffic congested areas.

Suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne and to a lesser extent other capital cities frequently do not meet air quality standards, and show a deterioration in air quality in recent years.

This pollution is likely to get worse as population increases and along with it congestion on our roads.

Graeme McLeay is an anaesthetist and member of Doctors for the Environment Australia.

Cars emit a toxic mix of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ground level ozone, and particulate matter, some of it visible as smog or haze.

None of it is good for you. There is growing evidence that such pollution harms our health from the womb to the grave.

Respected medical journals are linking air pollution to underweight newborns, asthma and poor lung development in children, heart disease, stroke, and asthma and lung cancer in later life and even Alzheimer’s disease in elderly people living close to traffic corridors.

The California Children’s Health study followed children over a 10- year period. Children living or going to school close to traffic pollution experienced more respiratory disease such as asthma and bronchitis, and on days when high concentrations of ozone were present, absences from school. In adulthood, previously highly exposed children were found to have reduced lung function.

Children are especially susceptible to asthma and wheeze because of their relatively small airways and they breathe more air per body weight than adults.

Diesel vehicles are popular – I bought one some years ago – and they are the fastest growing fuel type in Australia. I would suspect that many consumers are unaware as I was when I bought my car that diesel is a major contributor of air pollution.

Diesel contains more particulates and nitrox compounds than those from petrol. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has declared diesel emissions carcinogenic.

Despite the evidence of harm, tougher vehicle emission standards which apply in other developed countries are still waiting to be introduced into Australia. Testing overseas has shown that even when cars have particulate filters to meet these higher standards, under real world stop-start driving conditions, diesel emissions remain a problem.

Paris, Madrid, Mexico City, and Athens are planning to ban diesel cars from entering the city, and there is a push to do the same in parts of the United Kingdom.

But diesel is not the only culprit fouling the air we breathe. The level of sulfur in petrol in Australia is making our fuel some of the dirtiest in the world, the current 50-150 parts per million is much higher than comparable economies, and it needs to be lowered to 10ppm.

Sulfur dioxide is a respiratory irritant and contributes particularly to child breathing difficulties.

Australia needs to clean up its act.

A Ministerial Forum on Vehicle Emissions was established in October 2015 to coordinate a whole-of-government approach to addressing emissions from motor vehicles but the word health does not appear in their terms of reference and the Health Minister is not part of the forum.

Yet the World Health Organisation has identified outdoor air pollution as a major environmental health hazard.

The Forum on emissions has been considering vehicle emissions in three ways: improved vehicle efficiency standards which not only give better kilometres per litre but reduce greenhouse gases per litre; more stringent vehicle emission standards which reduce tailpipe emissions of harmful pollutants; and, in the latest round, fuel standards, which enable both of those objectives.

There is a win-win opportunity here to save lives through better air quality, reduce greenhouse emissions and, at the same time, gain productivity in improved mileage and reduced costs to transport.

Much more can be done by both government and individuals to give us air fit to breathe.

In a recent submission to the Ministerial Forum, medical group Doctors for the Environment Australia made a number of recommendations: higher vehicle emissions standards on all new cars in line with the best standards applying overseas; cleaner fuel standards for all fuel types; tax incentives to favour petrol cars over diesel; and tax incentives favouring hybrid and electric cars.

Better public transport, more walking paths and bike lanes, car sharing, urban planning and public warnings about air quality can all help to reduce the health burden. Idling of vehicles while stationary is banned in some overseas jurisdictions and turning off the engine while waiting is something simple everyone can do.

I for one will, among other things, ensure that my next car will be electric or hybrid!

Source: Cars Are Killing Us | Gizmodo Australia

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