Delhi’s car fetish is worsening air pollution, 10-year study shows

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

A sharp increase in the number of motorcycles and cars in Delhi, mainly because of the purchasing capacity of young people, has contributed to an increase in air pollution in the national capital, according to a 10-year analysis done by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

Vehicular emissions, especially from two-wheelers, are the predominant source of air pollution in the city, say the analysis published in the latest issue of the Atmosphere Pollution Research Journal.

The data for the period 2000 to 2010 compiled by the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at IIT-Delhi and CPCB shows that emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxide (NOX) have increased nearly 77 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively.

Emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) have greatly reduced (21 per cent) due to the phasing out of diesel-driven buses.

Emissions of particulate matter (PM10), organic carbon (OC) and black carbon (BC) were found to be continuously increasing after 2002 due to a rapid rise in the annual growth of registered vehicles in Delhi.

Currently, there are 5.38 million two-wheelers registered in Delhi.

“Two-wheelers, which constitute 60 per cent of total registered vehicles, have been found to be major contributors towards emissions of pollutants considered in the analysis. This increase was also attributed to the buying capacity and fascination for new bikes and cars among Delhiites,” said the study done by Rati Sindhwan and Dr. Pramila Goyal of the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences.

Delhi, one of the fastest-growing economic centres of South Asia, has seen a rapid increase in its vehicular population in the past decade.

The city accounts for about eight per cent of the total registered vehicles in India.

According to the CPCB, the city has more registered vehicles than the combined number of vehicles in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata.

via Delhi’s car fetish is worsening air pollution, 10-year study shows | Mail Online.

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Edinburgh City Council oppose stricter regulation on air pollution

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

Edinburgh is expected to miss its European Union emissions target.Instead, the city is expected to reach the target in 2020 – five years later than hoped.

City councillors yesterday discussed a proposal to do more to tackle air pollution in the city, as Friends of the Earth claimed the dangerous levels were “causing more than 200” deaths in Edinburgh.

Councillor Lesley Hinds warned Green councillor Chas Booth against using “emotive language” when he supported the tougher proposal and reinforced the number of deaths due to air pollution.

A report to the Transport and Environment Committee said Edinburgh would not meet the EU emission limits until about 2020, but councillors said the Scottish Government had confirmed it would not pass on any air quality fines for failing to meet targets.

Friends of the Earth proposed establishing low emissions zones in the city, an approach already adopted in other European cities including London.

Councillors praised Lothian Buses’ efforts to decrease its contribution to air pollution by introducing Euro 5 standard vehicles and voted out the Green amendment for more robust action on air pollution in Edinburgh.

The council did, however, extend the city centre air quality management area to include part of South Bridge and Nicholson Street and at Angle Park Terrance and Slateford Road as these areas in parts have exceeded national standards.

This means council staff will monitor these areas more closely and take action to improve air quality.

The council will also consult the Scottish Government, SEPA and DEFRA on the data they gather to see how they can work together to reduce emissions in the city.

Read the full report on the City of Edinburgh Council website.

via Edinburgh City Council oppose stricter regulation on air pollution | STV Edinburgh | Edinburgh.

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Call for urgent action to address Europe’s air pollution

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

European Respiratory Society publishes new data showing ‘clear link’ between exposure to air pollution and deteriorating lung health in adults


The European Respiratory Society has called for urgent action to tackle air pollution in Europe following the release of new data underlining the link between air quality and lung health.

The study, entitled ‘Long-term exposure to air pollution and lung function in adults: multicentre cohort study and meta-analysis’ evaluates the correlation between air pollution and lung function in adults from eight countries – the UK, Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Sweden.

The study says that the results confirm previous findings that children growing up in areas with higher levels of pollution will have lower levels of lung function and a higher risk of developing symptoms such as cough and bronchitis symptoms. Additionally, it reports that people suffering from obesity are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of air pollution, possibly due to an increased risk of lung inflammation.The researchers used indicators of traffic in the area and modelled the exposure levels to different pollution measures including nitrogen oxides (NO2 and NOx) and particulate matter (PM). Lung function data were collected from 7,613 participants through spirometry testing in adults.

Congress

The research is part of the EU-funded European Study of Cohorts of Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE) project. It was published to coincide with the opening of the ERS Congress in Munich on Saturday (September 6).

Senior author, Nicole Probst-Hensch and lead author Martin Adam, from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, said: “The ESCAPE project has clearly confirmed that air quality largely differs across Europe. The findings of this project are crucial as they demonstrate that air pollution is having a negative effect, not only on children as previously demonstrated, but also into adulthood. Although the levels we see in Europe are much lower than in the so-called megacities in China and India, we are still seeing a deterioration of lung function in people exposed to higher levels of air pollution and this must be addressed.”

Commenting on the results, Professor Peter Barnes, president of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) said: “The findings of this study demonstrate the importance of educating about clean air and the negative effects of air pollution. Urgent action is needed to tackle air pollution in Europe. It is crucial that policymakers in Europe take note of these findings and update guidelines in Member States to meet the WHO recommended air quality standards. This will ensure equal protection of all citizens’ health across the continent.”

Campaign

At the Congress the ERS and European Lung Foundation (ELF) also launched their inaugural Healthy Lungs for Life campaign with the theme: Breathe Clean Air. The campaign aims to raise awareness and educate about the importance of healthy lungs and clean air free from particulate matter, pathogens, smoke and dangerous gases.

At the opening ceremony of the Congress, Zsuzsanna Jakob, World Health Organisation (WHO) regional director for Europe, received the ELF Award in recognition of the WHO’s efforts to improve lung health with the introduction of the air quality guidelines.

Accepting the award, Ms Jakab said: “It is a great pleasure and honour for me to accept the 2014 European Lung Foundation award for WHO’s work in improving respiratory health through our outdoor air quality guidelines. We have come far. These guidelines – drawing on the invaluable expertise of partners including the European Lung Foundation – have led countries to establish national air quality standards, and the European Union to adopt the clean air directive.”

via Call for urgent action to address Europe’s air pollution | AirQualityNews.

Posted in Air Quality, Europe, France, Germany, Health Effects of Air Pollution, Italy, Spain, UK | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

High Levels of Air Pollution Linked to Deteriorating Lung Health

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

A new study has revealed a link between air pollution and deteriorating lung health in adult European citizens.

Researchers found that children growing up in areas with higher levels of pollution will have lower levels of lung function and a higher risk of developing symptoms such as cough and bronchitis symptoms. They identified that people suffering from obesity are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of air pollution, possibly due to an increased risk of lung inflammation.

“The findings of this project are crucial as they demonstrate that air pollution is having a negative effect, not only on children as previously demonstrated, but also into adulthood,” Nicole Probst-Hensch, senior author of the study, said in a statement. “Although the levels we see in Europe are much lower than in the so-called megacities in China and India, we are still seeing a deterioration of lung function in people exposed to higher levels of air pollution and this must be addressed.”

Researchers said large proportion of Europe’s population  live in areas with levels of air quality that are known to have negative impacts on health. Earlier this year, the WHO estimated that air pollution was the cause of seven million premature deaths in 2012, with 3.7 million of these being connected with poor outdoor air quality.

“The findings of this study demonstrate the importance of educating about clean air and the negative effects of air pollution. Urgent action is needed to tackle air pollution in Europe,” Professor Peter Barnes, president of the European Respiratory Society, said in a statement. “It is crucial that policymakers in Europe take note of these findings and update guidelines in Member States to meet the WHO recommended air quality standards. This will ensure equal protection of all citizens’ health across the continent.”

via High Levels of Air Pollution Linked to Deteriorating Lung Health : News : University Herald.

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Cut air pollution in half by taking road less travelled

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

Commuters could cut their air pollution intake in half simply by using the side streets in major cities rather than main roads, a scientist has claimed. Dr Rossa Brugha, a paediatrician and pollution researcher at Queen Mary, University of London, discovered that walkers can make small adjustments to their route which could have major benefits on their health.

Long-term exposure to air pollution contributes to around 28,000 deaths each year, government figures suggest.   The most recent statistics from Public Health England PHE suggest that 5.3 per cent of all deaths in over-25s are linked to air pollution, but that leaps to 8.3 per cent in inner London.

However Dr Brugha found that pollution, primarily caused by traffic, falls off rapidly just a few metres away from main roads.

He tested the theory while walking the two miles between Waterloo Station in London and the British Library, and found that by switching to side streets, the recorded level of air pollution he experienced fell by half.

“The most important thing is being away from the traffic,” he said.

“If you are walking home from work at rush hour or when you’re walking to your office in the morning, veer off into the side streets and the air will be cleaner.

“You can cut air pollution by half by going a different route, which will have incremental health benefits.”

Dr Brugha claims that pollution in cities can be the equivalent of smoking half a cigarette per day and is particularly damaging for children, because their lungs are still developing.

He advises parents to look carefully at routes to school to avoid the busiest roads.

“Children get one third of pollution from their route to school so parents can help their children by trying to find a better route, which takes them away from the traffic.”

Dr Brugha will be presenting findings at the British Science Festival in Birmingham next week.

via Cut air pollution in half by taking road less travelled – Telegraph.

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Pearl River Delta governments axe cross-border air quality index

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

Governments in the Pearl River Delta area have axed the decade-old regional air-quality index in favour of an online platform offering pollutant concentration readings that has been criticised as hard to understand.

The Environmental Protection Department announced the change in a press release yesterday after the environmental chiefs of Macau, Guangdong and Hong Kong signed an agreement on so-called “regional air-pollution control and prevention”.

The three governments agreed to do away with the index and a related map that used different colours to grade air quality across the region – a system in use since 2005 to monitor changes in air quality after a 2002 cross-border pact to reduce emissions.

After the termination of that index, there will no longer be a single yardstick covering the whole region. Rather, three different air-pollution indices and alert systems will now operate separately in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau.

The EPD hailed the new agreement as progress, with hourly updates of pollution readings at 23 locations in the region, including the newcomer Macau, via an online platform managed by the Guangdong authority.

The platform displays a map of the region, with the hourly concentration levels of six pollutants, such as ozone and fine particles, shown at each of the 23 selected monitoring locations: four in Hong Kong, one in Macau and the rest scattered around the Pearl River Delta.

However, Guangdong’s environmental protection bureau already releases hourly updates of air-quality data on its website (and has since 2012), covering 111 locations in the province and the same range of air pollutants.

Dr Cheng Luk-ki, the scientific and conservation head of the advocacy group Green Power, criticised the change as “a step backward” and a “loss of a common language in air pollution”.

He said that while the old index was compiled based on the national air-quality standards, it at least offered the readers clarity and meaningful comparisons of air-quality measurements across the region.

“The public will now find it hard to understand the meaning behind those pollution readings, without a simple index to explain the impacts,” he said.

He said the online platform was already redundant, as it made more sense for people to go directly to the air-quality index offered by their own local environmental authority.

Professor Wong Tze-wai, an air-pollution expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who helped devise the city’s new air-quality health index, said neither an “oversimplified index” nor “complicated pollution readings” would be meaningful to the public.

He said it would be beneficial if the air-quality indices between Hong Kong and the mainland could be unified, but he believed that would be a time-consuming process with many technical problems that would have to be overcome.

Hong Kong now employs an alert system that gives air-quality information by neighbourhood on a scale of one to 11, displaying the health risk associated with each reading.

Macau and Guangdong, meanwhile, use conventional air-quality index systems that express pollution as one of six grades, with scales from 0 to 500 and from 0 to more than 300.

via Pearl River Delta governments axe cross-border air quality index | South China Morning Post.

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Respro® Masks FAQ: Can the mask be washed?

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

Can the mask be washed?

It is recommended that you wash the neoprene shell of the mask every month under normal use. To do this it is necessary to remove the filter and the valve first. Although spare valves and filters are available from your retailer, please be careful not to misplace any of the components during maintenance.

Place the filter and valves in a pan of freshly boiled water (remove pan from heat source before putting filter in) and let it cool down. Remove filter unit and allow to stand dry.

This will remove facial oils that may build up over a period of continuous use and ensure that it is hygienically clean. This procedure will also remove some of the particulates and organic vapour that will be present within the Charcoal structure of the filter or tissue salt build in the valves.

If the mask cover (shell) requires washing this should be done by carefully removing the filter assembly and then washing it in warm soapy water and then left to dry naturally.

For more FAQ,  see Respro® Mask FAQ or visit our YouTube channel youtube.com/ResproMasks

All Respro® products are available from our website respro.com

Respro® will ship your order to anywhere on the planet free of charge.

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Missouri regulators approve change in air pollution fees

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Respro® UK Ltd

An increase in the fees paid by Missouri’s polluters is set to take effect by January 2016.

The Missouri Air Conservation Commission voted Tuesday to proceed with the new fees after Missouri Department of Natural Resources staff spent the summer working with affected industries to devise a new fee structure that would keep its air pollution program solvent.

The proposal would charge industry $48 per emitted ton of sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and other pollutants. That would be up from $40 per ton, and fees will remain capped at 4,000 tons per pollutant and 12,000 tons in all.

The proposal is expected to raise about $1 million more per year, but it still must go through a formal state rulemaking and, in addition, is subject to review from the Legislature.

It’s a scaled-back version of an earlier proposal that would have also raised some permit review fees. However, the special fee adjustment process requires “substantial agreement” with affected companies, and staff at the DNR said last month that some opposition arose late in the process. DNR administrators have not said who opposed the increases.

Most industries that participated through the summer supported the proposal. Last month, some said that raising only emission fees wasn’t fair and that they would like to see permit fees raised, too. If the DNR’s air program cannot meet minimum standards, the Environmental Protection Agency could step in to do the job.

The state air pollution program still faces tight budgets even with the increase, but administrators say it should be able to remain solvent beyond 2016, when it originally projected it would run out of money without an increase in years-old air pollution fees.

It plans to again ask the companies it regulates for permit fee increases beginning next year.

via Missouri regulators approve change in air pollution fees : Business.

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