Changing a child’s route to school can halve exposure to air pollution

Posted on October 23, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

Children travelling to school via back streets rather than main roads cut their exposure to air pollution by almost half, according to the largest study of its kind.

Earlier this year, more than 250 children at five London schools wore backpacks with pollution sensors and GPS trackers, recording whether they were travelling by foot, car or bus. The result was a clear difference in exposure to levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a harmful gas produced by diesel vehicles, between main roads and quieter ones.

The research highlights the importance of the school run in determining children’s exposure to NO2, which has been linked with asthma and other health concerns. On average, NO2 levels were five times higher in the morning, and four times higher in the afternoon, than while at school, largely because air pollution levels spike in rush hour.

The project led to 31 per cent of the participating children changing their school commute to reduce their exposure to dirty air.

Benjamin Barratt of King’s College London, who led the work, says it was already known that there were strong changes in how NO2 people breathe away from main roads, but maps modelling exposure had not been widely used or accepted as hoped. One previous study found some parents mistrust the results of air quality models and wanted to see measurements.

“The main aim of this study was to make the important issue of air quality more engaging and personal to teachers, children and their parents, stimulating understanding and action. Using the backpacks to measure levels of pollution in the air that they and their schoolmates were actually breathing made it seem more real and relevant to their everyday lives,” says Barratt.

The large number of families who changed their route demonstrates the success of the approach, he says.

On average, walking on back streets resulted in the lowest exposure to pollution, at 78 micrograms of NO2 per cubic metre of air. Car or bus travel was 85 µg/m3 and exposure was highest when walking by main roads, at 143 µg/m3. Roads that exceed an annual average of 40 µg/m3 are breaking legal limits on air pollution.

However, even on quiet routes, the backpacks detected brief spikes in pollution caused by cars using the roads as a shortcut. Parents dropping off and picking up children by car also contributed to pollution by leaving engines idling.

That said, London air is improving. Official figures published yesterday show NO2 levels in the capital have fallen by more than a third since new air pollution controls introduced in April.

via Changing a child’s route to school can halve exposure to air pollution | New Scientist

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Unsafe PM2.5 levels return

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

Fine dust was at unsafe levels in many districts of Bangkok and some districts in Samut Prakan and Samut Sakhon provinces.

Pralong Damrongthai, director-general of the Pollution Control Department, said on Tuesday that the levels of particulate matter 2.5 micrometres and less (PM2.5) in diameter measured 32-84 microgrammes per cubic metre of air in greater Bangkok over the 24 hours to 9am Tuesday. The safe threshold is set at 50mcg by the government.

Fine dust breached the safe level in Bangkok’s Din Daeng, Bang Phlad (Charan Sanitwong Road), Bang Khunthian (Rama II Road), Pathumwan (Chamchuri Square), Phasicharoen (Phetkasem Road), and Bang Sue districts.

For the adjacent provinces, PM2.5 levels were unhealthy in tambon Song Khanong of Phra Pradaeng and tambon Pak Nam of Muang districts of Samut Prakan, and tambon Maha Chai of Muang district and tambon Om Noi of Krathum Baen district of Samut Sakhon, Mr Pralong said.

He attributed the air pollution to a high pressure system from China that caused stagnant air.

via Unsafe PM2.5 levels return

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Scores more heart attacks and strokes on high pollution days, figures show

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

Data reveals acute impact on people’s health and the strain it puts on emergency services

Scores of children and adults are being rushed to hospital for emergency treatment on days of high pollution in cities across England, figures show.

Each year emergency services see more than 120 additional cardiac arrests, more than 230 additional strokes and nearly 200 more people with asthma requiring hospital treatment on days of high pollution compared with the average on days of lower pollution.

The data, to be published in full next month, shows the extra strain that poor air quality is putting on already stretched NHS emergency resources.

Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, said: “These new figures show air pollution is now causing thousands of strokes, cardiac arrests and asthma attacks, so it’s clear that the climate emergency is in fact also a health emergency. Since these avoidable deaths are happening now, not in 2025 or 2050, together we need to act now.”

Previous studies have found spikes in hospital admissions and GP visits on days of high pollution, but the new data gives precise numbers for nine English cities and shows a clear relationship between heart attacks, strokes and respiratory illnesses and dirty air.

The researchers defined high pollution days by dividing the year in two based on levels of pollution and comparing the number of cases of the relevant illness in the higher pollution half of the year with the number of similar cases on each day in the lower half.

The data, collated by King’s College London (KCL), covers London, where there are 338 more emergencies a year on higher pollution days compared with low pollution days, Birmingham (65 a year), Bristol (22), Derby (16), Liverpool (28), Manchester (34), Nottingham (19), Oxford (10) and Southampton (16).

Much of the recent research on air pollution has focused on the lifelong effects of chronic exposure, including cognitive decline, stunted growth in children and premature death. However, it can also bring on serious illness more immediately.

Jenny Bates, an air pollution campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “Many people may not realise how dangerous air pollution at high levels can be, and that it can trigger heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks as well as having long-term health effects. These figures will be a wake-up call for city leaders to take the strongest possible action.”

The government has pledged to tackle air pollution in its environment bill, proposals for which were laid out after the Queen’s speech. Campaigners are concerned that the measures proposed are too vague and too weak.

Polly Billington, the director of UK100, a network of local government leaders across England that have pledged to shift wholly to clean energy by 2050, said: “We would like to see World Health Organization air pollution standards included in the bill, as they are widely seen as gold standard, with a legally binding timetable to meet them, as that creates certainty and enables long-term planning. The absence of significantly increased powers for local leaders, together with a lack of reference to the need for adequate funding, are the big holes in the bill that will hold action back.”

On Wednesday the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and UK100 will hold an international clean air summit with the World Health Organization (WHO) director general, Tedros Adhanom.

Heather Walton, a health expert with the environmental research group at KCL, said the study was intended to provide more detail than others that have tended to concentrate on the effects of air pollution on life expectancy, such as estimates that pollution contributes to 36,000 deaths a year in the UK.

By homing in on hospital admissions for cardiac arrests, strokes and asthma, the researchers were able to provide a clearer picture of the acute impacts on people and how emergency services are affected. “This provides additional evidence of the important need for further action to reduce air pollution,” Walton said.

Bates said clean air zones were needed, but also measures to cut all traffic “because all vehicles produce deadly fine particle air pollution from brake and tyre wear. This way the air pollution health crisis and the climate emergency can be addressed together, helping to make our cities and towns healthier and more attractive.”

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “We are taking urgent action to improve air quality and tackle pollution so people can live longer healthier lives. Our landmark environment bill will set ambitious, legally binding targets to reduce fine particulate matter and increase local powers to address key sources of air pollution.

“We are already working hard to reduce transport emissions and are investing £3.5bn to clean up our air, while our clean air strategy has been praised by the WHO as an example for the rest of the world to follow.”

Last week Europe’s environmental watchdog found that little or no progress had been made across Europe on cutting levels of fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, which is one of the most dangerous forms of pollution because it can lodge deep in the lungs and penetrate the bloodstream.

via Scores more heart attacks and strokes on high pollution days, figures show | Environment | The Guardian

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Air pollution kills a child every 3 minutes in India

Posted on October 18, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar recorded the highest rate of child mortality due to toxic air: Global Burden of Disease 2017

Every three minutes a child dies in India because of inhaling toxic pollutants in the air, according to an analysis of the Global Burden of Disease 2017.

In 2017, 1,95,546 children lost their lives due to air pollution-related diseases, which means 535 deaths occurred daily on an average, showed the data.

Lower respiratory tract infection (LRI) caused by exposure to air pollutants was recorded as the second-major reason for child mortality, after neonatal disorder, showed the data spanning from 1990-2017.

Of the total, LRI claimed lives of 1,85,422 children aged between 0 and 5; another 10,124 died between 5 and 10 ages due to the deadly infection. In the last 27 years, more than a crore children could not live to see their sixth-year due to the deadly infection, the analysis showed.

Rajasthan recorded the maximum number of these deaths, where 126 children per 1,00,000 died of air pollution in 2017. It was followed by Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The number was also very high in north eastern states of Nagaland, Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya, and Mizoram. In Delhi, 41 child deaths were recorded in the same year due to air pollution.

The lowest number of deaths was recorded in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka.

Other reasons for child mortality in India included diarrhoea, malaria, protein deficiency, typhoid, and tuberculosis, among others.

Ambient air pollution is associated with mortality from LRIs, especially in combination with under nutrition and inadequate health care, according to a study published in The Lancet in 2018.

The deadly impact of air pollution on children in low and middle income countries, like India was also highlighted in a study released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2018.

In these countries, 98 per cent of all children under five are exposed to particulate matter (PM) 2.5 levels, above WHO’s air quality guidelines, the study noted.

In comparison, among high-income countries, 52 per cent of children under five are exposed to levels above WHO air quality guidelines. The study stated that air pollution accounts for almost one in 10 deaths in children under five.

via Air pollution kills a child every 3 minutes in India

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Indian capital’s air quality plunges despite new measures

Posted on October 17, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

The Indian capital’s air quality levels plunged to “poor” on Wednesday, a day after the government initiated stricter measures to fight chronic air pollution.

The state-run Central Pollution Control Board’s air quality index for New Delhi stood at 299, about six times the recommended level.

“People can’t breathe properly,” said Inderjeet Gupta, an ice cream vendor outside the famous India Gate.

India is home to the world’s 14 most polluted cities, with New Delhi the sixth-worst. A sharp increase in vehicle and industrial emissions, pollutants released from holiday firecrackers and dust from building sites increases pollution in the city of more than 20 million people during the onset of winters, exacerbating what is already a public health crisis.

In a bid to deal with the pollution, the government on Tuesday said it was instituting measures meant to discourage private vehicles on roads, increase bus and metro services and stop the use of diesel generators.

While many factors contribute to the severe air pollution in New Delhi, researchers say crop burning in neighboring states is responsible for almost 10 percent of the city’s pollution.

October is the time of year when farmers in the neighboring states of Haryana, Punjab and nearby bordering regions set fire to their post-harvest fields that need clearing for the next crop season, despite there being a ban on it.

Smoke from these states travels to New Delhi, leading to a surge in pollution levels.

Punjab alone generates almost 20 million tons of crop waste every year, three-quarters of which is then burned. A cheap and effective method of clearing the land, the burning has the benefit of killing pests that eat crops and it converts the residue into fertilizing ash. But the smoke it emits can cause respiratory illnesses.

On a recent evening in Punjab’s Amritsar city, farmers were burning the crop waste and flaming carpets of golden residue belched white smoke into the sky along vast paddy fields.

Farmers continue to defy the ban in part due to a lack of financial incentives. Efforts by the government to curb the practice have also met with very little success.

“I agree that burning the stubble is not the right thing to do but what else can the poor farmers do?” said Ravi Kahlo, a farmer.

The burning takes place twice a year after the harvest of wheat in April and May and of rice in October and November. It is only during the latter season when Delhi’s air quality deteriorates because of specific meteorological conditions.

Satellite images recorded scores of farm fires across Punjab and Haryana on Tuesday.

Researchers say crop burning is responsible for almost 10 percent of the pollution in New Delhi.

The Punjab government has launched mobile applications aimed at checking crop residue burning, promised to provide modern farm equipment to the state’s farmers with a subsidy, and implemented stringent laws to achieve the task of zero crop burning.

via Indian capital’s air quality plunges despite new measures | The Japan Times

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Memory is damaged by air pollution, researchers find

Posted on October 17, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

New research from the University of Warwick shows that human memory is significantly worse in parts of England with high levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and air particulates (PM10). The difference in memory quality between England’s cleanest and most-polluted areas is equivalent to the loss of memory from 10 extra years of aging.

This is consistent with prior smaller-scale laboratory research on rats and other animals. But the new work, by Nattavudh Powdthavee, Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, and Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science, is some of the first to confirm the same in humans.

The researchers examined 34,000 English citizens randomly sampled from across England’s local-authority districts. Everyone in the study was asked to remember 10 words in a standardized word-recall test. The analysis adjusted for a large number of other influences on the quality of people’s memory—including people’s age, health, level of education, ethnicity, and family and employment status. The report, revealing a strong link between air pollution and impaired memory, is to be published in the journal Ecological Economics.

Memory slowly worsens as people grow older. The authors estimate that the difference in memory quality between England’s cleanest and most-polluted areas is equivalent to the loss of memory from 10 extra years of aging. The most polluted air in England is in places like Kensington and Islington. The cleanest is on the west coastline in districts like Devon and West Somerset.

“There is a little prior evidence of a negative association between levels of traffic pollution and memory using data on elderly individuals and in children,” said Professor Powdthavee, “but almost all research in human studies on this topic has been based on elementary correlations and not on nationally representative samples of individuals in a country. We have tried to solve these two problems in our study.”

Professor Andrew Oswald said “When it comes to remembering a string of words, a 50 year old in polluted Chelsea performs like a 60 year old in Plymouth. We are still not exactly sure how nitrogen dioxide and air particulates act to do this.”

Using a nationally representative sample in the UK Household Longitudinal Study—the Understanding Society—the researchers have been able to study the link between data on a standardized word-recall test that was done in the year 2011 by 34,000 randomly sampled English citizens with data on NO2 and PM10 across 318 geographical areas. By exploiting regional variations in the direction of prevailing westerly wind and population density as predictors of air pollution but not memory, they were also able to correct for the potential selection effect that might arise from people with impaired memory choosing to live in more polluted areas.

via Memory is damaged by air pollution, researchers find

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Sources of Air Pollution in Europe

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd
Air pollutants are emitted from a range of both man-made and natural sources including:
  • burning of fossil fuels in electricity generation, transport, industry and households;
  • industrial processes and solvent use, for example in the chemical and mining industries;
  • agriculture;
  • waste treatment;
  • natural sources, including volcanic eruptions, windblown dust, sea-salt spray and emissions of volatile organic compounds from plants.

image2

via eea.europa.eu/themes/air/air-pollution-sources

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Little progress made in tackling air pollution in Europe, research says

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

European Environment Agency found levels of fine particulate matter stalled after decades of reductions

Little progress has been made on tackling air quality in Europe, new research shows, despite public outcry in many countries and increasing awareness of the health impacts of pollution.

Levels of the dangerous fine particulate matter known as PM2.5, which can lodge deep in the lungs and pass into the bloodstream, appear to have reached a plateau across Europe, after more than a decade of gradual reductions. The results come from the European Environment Agency’s Air Quality in Europe 2019 report, published on Wednesday, which collates data taken from thousands of monitoring stations in 2017.

“We do not see any big improvement, or worsening, year on year,” said Alberto Gonzalez Ortiz, air quality expert at the EEA, Europe’s environmental watchdog. “It is PM2.5 that we should worry most about, and it is coming from domestic heating [such as wood-burning stoves], industry and transport.”

In 2016, the latest year for which an accurate count can be made, there were about 412,000 deaths in Europe from PM2.5 alone, according to the EEA. From 2014 to 2017, the levels of fine particulate matter remained broadly flat, after long-term reductions in levels of the pollutant stretching back to 2000.

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels have fallen further, but remain a serious problem. Nitrogen dioxide is an irritant gas, emitted from diesel vehicles in particular. In 2017, according to the report, about 10% of monitoring stations in Europe showed levels above safety limits. In the UK, the monitoring station at Marylebone Road continued to record the highest level of nitrogen dioxide pollution in western Europe, despite falls in the overall concentrations of the gas.

Jenny Bates, air pollution campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “People across the UK are paying a heavy price for the government’s continuing failure to clean up the nation’s filthy air, with tens of thousands of premature deaths every year. While half of our European neighbours manage to comply with legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution, 36 out of 43 UK air quality zones continue to suffer unlawful levels. And we’re also failing World Health Organization standards for the most deadly fine particle air pollution [PM2.5] in places across the country.”

The government has pledged to bring forward air quality commitments in new legislation announced in the Queen’s speech on Monday. A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said more recent data than that included in the EEA report showed “positive progress”, including one fewer road showing breaches in safe levels of NO2 in 2018 compared with 2017.

“We are working hard to reduce transport emissions and are already investing £3.5bn to clean up our air, while our Clean Air Strategy has been praised by the WHO as an ‘example for the rest of the world to follow’,” the spokesperson said. “Our environment bill will drive further improvements, increasing local powers to address key sources of air pollution and introducing a duty to set a legally-binding target to reduce fine particulate matter.”

Campaigners urged ministers to include legally binding targets based on WHO standards, with a duty on public bodies to take action to meet the targets, and a right to clean air enshrined in law.

Greg Archer, UK director at the NGO Transport & Environment, said the bill must be strengthened: “The proposed environment bill will create an undernourished, toothless watchdog. Without ambitious targets and actions to tackle air pollution, people will continue to die unnecessarily.”

He added: “Ministers must also scrap their multi-billion pound road-building programme, and invest in cleaner alternatives such as better public transport, cycling and walking facilities. This will not only allow people to breath more easily, it will also help address the climate emergency.”

Levels of ammonia are also on the rise, driven by farming. Ammonia can combine with other pollutants in the air to harm human health, and is also damaging to plants and wildlife. The Guardian revealed earlier this year that 3,000 deaths a year could be avoided in the UK by halving ammonia emissions from farms.

via Little progress made in tackling air pollution in Europe, research says | Environment | The Guardian

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