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Air pollution: Deadlier than traffic crashes

SHAKEEL A L MAHMOOD
****The United Nations framework Convection on air pollution should be implemented in our country. Within this framework a national level commission along with NGO's should be formed to combat this situation. UN Environment Programme, UNEP should open a technical office, specializing in air pollution in Dhaka as they have opened in Kathmandu, Nepal... We need to save the forest and promote plantation inside the cities to maintain or restore the ecological balance.***
Air pollution kills an estimated 2.7-3.0 million people every year -- about 6 per cent of all deaths annually. About nine deaths in every 10 due to air pollution take place in the developing world, where about 80 per cent of all people live. Again out of this 2.7 million, 1.6+ million die in Asian countries alone. About 2.5 billion people, almost all in developing countries, suffer from high levels of indoor air pollution which is due to burning of wood, animal dung, crop residues, and coal for cooking and heating. Most of the victims of indoor pollution are women and girls, who have primary responsibility of cooking and house keeping. On the other hand, outdoor air pollution harms more than 1.1 billion people, mostly in cities.
While debates about energy choices, long term climate change impacts, and the capacity to adapt to those impacts continue to evolve, there is little doubt that air pollution from current patterns of fossil-fuel use for electricity generation, transport, industry and housing are already sickening or killing millions throughout the world.
Earlier air pollution studies have found that reducing emissions from older, coal-fired power plants in the United States would prevent 18700 deaths, 3 million lost days and 16 million restricted activity days each year. One regional study showed that reducing emission from nine older coal plants in the Midwest would prevent 300 yearly deaths, 2000 respiratory and cardiac hospital admissions, 10,000 asthma attacks and 400000 days of respiratory symptoms. In the latest study, researchers said even more public health benefits could come from reducing air pollutants they did not chart.
In cities that lack pollution control, millions of people are at risk from outdoor pollution. Densely populated and rapidly growing cities such as Bangkok, Manila, Mexico City, and New Delhi are often entombed in a pall of pollution from trucks and cars and from uncontrolled industrial emissions. In 1995, for example, the average ozone concentration in Mexico City was about 0.15 parts per million, ppm, 10 times the natural atmospheric concentration and twice the maximum permitted in Japan or the US.
In the developing countries, 22-lakh children die of respiratory infection associated with indoor air pollution a year. Lead pots, pipes,
and smelters are usually held responsible by the experts for loss of intelligence among children and for brain damage and abnormal behaviour among adults.
Heavy metals released into the environment today come from uncontrolled emissions by metal smelters and other industrial activities, unsafe disposal of industrial wastes and lead in water pipes, paint, and gasoline. The heavy metals most dangerous to health include lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, copper, zinc, and chromium. Such metals are found naturally in the soil in trace amounts, which pose many problems. When concentrated in particular areas, however, they present a serious danger. Arsenic and cadmium, for instance, can cause
cancer. Mercury can cause mutations and genetic damage, while copper, lead, and mercury can cause brain and bone damage.
Lead additives in gasoline cause widespread health problems. In Thailand, for example, a 1990 study found that some 70,000 children in Bangkok risked losing four or more points of IQ because they were heavily exposed to lead emissions from motor vehicles. In Latin America, some 15 million children under the age of two are at risk of ill health from lead pollution. In United States leaded gasoline began to be phased out after the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970. It was not until the mid 1980s, however, that the European Community followed suit. Elsewhere (like Bangladesh), leaded gasoline continues to be used extensively.
Air pollution is not only a health hazard but also reduces food production and timber harvests, because high levels of pollution impair photosynthesis. In Germany, for example, about US$ 4.7 billion a year in agricultural production is lost to high levels of sulfur, nitrogen oxides, and ozone.
The World Health Organisation estimates that about 700,000 deaths annually could be prevented in developing countries if three
major atmospheric pollutants -carbon monoxide, suspended particulate matter, and lead -- were brought down to safer levels. The direct health cost of urban air pollution in developing countries was estimated in 1995 at nearly US$100 billion a year. Chronic bronchitis alone accounted for around US$40 billion.
Air pollution in Bangladesh
Air pollution kills 15,000 Bangladeshis each year, according to a World Bank report released recently. The report says Bangladesh could save between $200 million and $800 million per year -about 0.7 per cent to 3.0 per cent of its gross national product -- if air pollution in the country's four major cities was reduced.
The report adds that 6.5 million people in those cities suffer each year at least 8.5 million cases of minor illnesses not requiring treatment. And the major disease in Bangladesh is not diarrhea, as is the general perception, but is the acute respiratory infections caused mainly by the polluted air. Automobiles (auto rickshaws, trucks and buses, some 35 per cent related to fine particulate matter and 48 per cent to hydrocarbon mainly generated by two stroke engines), industrial emissions, bad civic practices and poor government services are some of the factors causing air pollution in Bangladesh. The Bank gave Bangladesh $4.7 million last July to fund an air quality management project. It also supports a programme to train drivers how to reduce emissions.
The concentration of particulate matter and lead, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon in the air of Dhaka City is much above the standard level and is probably the highest in the world also making Dhaka one of the more cancer inducing cities of the world. The lead content in dust of Dhaka City was determined by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS). Lead content of dust ranged from 7 to 240 parts per million, ppm. Which is ten
times more than the standard level and several times more than even 'the most polluted city -- Mexico.' The highest amount of lead was found in the dust collected from Syedabad and the lowest was found at Dhaka University bus depot.. (Arifur Rahman and AKM Nurul Islam, Lead Pollution in Roadside Dust and Plants of Dhaka City, 1st National Conf. On Environmental Health in Bangladesh, 2002, 33 p).
A new child-attacking virus thrives in Dhaka as pollution heightens:
A new variant of a virus has been hitting small children of Dhaka with debilitating effect causing them breathing problem. The school children of Dhaka City had nasal irritation, cough when they catch
cold, headache, dizziness. ( Sk Akhtar Ahmed and others, Respiratory Problems attributable to Air pollution among school children,1st National Conf. On Environmental Health in Bangladesh, 2002, 34 p). The reason behind is the high lead in the environment from gasoline, ceramics, batteries, paints, etc. Young children are mostly exposed to cadmium through inhalation of smokes and contaminated soils and dust from industrial emissions and sewage sludge.
The children have in most cases been given antibiotic that is not useful in combating viral infections. However, what is alarming is that the medical community appears unprepared and unequipped to deal with this new viral strain and some medical experts have blamed it on the high level of urban pollution.
Recommendations: People have been crying out for solution for decades but nothing has yet been done. The atmosphere is under increasing pressure from green house gases that threaten to change the climate and from chemicals that reduce the ozone layer. 'The major air pollutants effecting respiratory tract are sulfur dioxide, photochemical oxidant, ozone and NO2.'(Dr. Kazi Saifuddin Bennoor and others, Air Pollution and Chest
Diseases, 1st National Conf. On Environmental Health in Bangladesh, 2002, 34 p).
Government need to:
Take the lead in managing this disastrous situation;
Promote national energy efficiency and emission standards and develop efficient, cost effective, and less polluting mass transit systems;
Completely abolish import and use of leaded gasoline;
Completely abolish 2-stroke engine vehicles;
Completely abolish (which are more than 20 years) old vehicles;
Correct use of lubricants can reduce the emission levels;
Encourage people to use Converted Natural Gas (CNG) or Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), Rechargeable Battery (recently being used by US) driven car;
Immediately scratch out all unfit vehicles and punish if they drive all those kinds of vehicles on the streets;
Immediately relocate/shift the industries (such as Tanneries, Battery, Pharmaceutical, Tobacco) away from Dhaka city,
Provide training for the doctors and treatment facilities for the patients;
Import general training quarterly to the drivers how to reduce emission;
Dispose of industrial waste properly;
Create public awareness on air pollution through media materials (such as videos, pamphlets, booklets, radio and television including print)
Modernize exiting power systems by reducing fossil -fuel combustion.
The United Nations framework Convection on air pollution should be implemented in our country. Within this framework a national level commission along with NGO's should be formed to combat this situation. UN Environment Programme, UNEP should open a technical office, specializing in air pollution in Dhaka as they have opened in Kathmandu, Nepal.
We need to save the forest and promote plantation inside the cities to maintain or restore the ecological balance.
Lastly we need 'strong political will' to save our environment.
Ln. Shakeel A L Mahmood is a member of Bangladesh Environmental Society