Something In The Air
(Published in The Kathmandu Post, September 25, 2015)
(Published in The Kathmandu Post, September 25, 2015)
Sandhya Regmi
sandhyaregmi2000@gmail.com
Air
pollution’s human-health impact can be detrimental and irreversible, whether
the pollution is sourced to industrial accident or normal operation.
Obviously, industrial
accidents can have devastating health effects. In what is considered as the
world's worst industrial disaster, Bhopal’s methyl-isocyanate gas leakage in
1984 killed over 8000 and injured over 500,000. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant’s catastrophic accident in 1986 released radioactive particles into much of Europe’s atmosphere
with eventual death toll of 4000 and radiation exposure to 586,000. Even the high-tech
country’s residents are not immune. Fukushima nuclear disaster of Japan in 2011
took the lives of 1232 and is feared to cause cancer to thousands.
The effects
can be no less even if the industries purport to operate normally. Donora
Pennsylvania’s 43% of the total population became ill and 20 died in 1948 due
to excess of sulphurdioxide and particulate matter in the ambient air. In
London, thick fog and temperature inversion killed 4000 in 1952. King's College
reported that 9,500 Londoners had their lives shortened by air pollution in
2010, accounting for a fifth of all deaths in the city that year. The effect
was deadlier where traffic was heaviest. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, air pollution
killed 4,655 people in 2011, contributing to over twice as many deaths that
year than both AIDS (874) and breast cancer (1,277) combined. Quite recently in
September 8, 2015 an unseasonal suffocating sandstorm hit Lebanon leading to 5
deaths and 750 cases of asphyxiation (shortness of breath).
Throughout
the world, hundreds of such incidents with alarming levels of air pollution are
compromising human health. Almost a decade ago, WHO had estimated that annually
about 3 million die prematurely due to air-pollution-induced health
complications, out of which 30% die due to lung cancer, cardiovascular and
respiratory diseases; and out of these, 150,000 deaths reportedly occur in south
Asia alone. In a new report, WHO estimates annual air-pollution related death
at 7 million, comprising one in eight of total global deaths. This finding more
than doubles previous estimates and confirms that air pollution is now the
world’s largest single environmental health disaster.
The susceptibility of lung cancer—the primary
culprit tied with air pollution —is higher in non-smokers. Fine
particles inhaled from polluted air injure the lungs through inflammation and
damage DNA. A recent
research by Harvard
School of Public Health reveals that non-smokers living in highly air-polluted areas are roughly 20% more
likely to die from lung cancer than people who live with cleaner air.
Alarming Scenario
The people of Kathmandu are no exception.
Health impacts of air pollution depend mainly upon type and concentration of
pollutant, exposure duration, and age and health condition of a person.
Probably in first comprehensive study of
its kind, World Bank had published health impacts of PM10 (annual average
concentration of particulates of size 10 micron or smaller) in Kathmandu. It
estimated 84 excess mortality, about 19,000 cases of asthma, and hundreds of
cases of bronchitis and other health-related disorders due to the air pollution.
Sickening
Agents
Clean Energy Nepal had investigated the
trend of air-pollution related diseases in the valley by analyzing data of
in-patents admitted over the previous 10 years in Kathmandu’s 3 largest public
hospitals, namely, Bir Hospital, Teaching Hospital, and Patan Hospital. The
results indicated that, in average, number of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary
Disease (COPD) patients nearly doubled over past decade, with an increase by
about 30 to 50% in winter season, which is explained by the thermal inversion
phenomenon in the cup shaped Kathmandu exacerbating the air pollution problems
during winter.
Further, case
studies on child labours and traffic police exposed to vehicular pollution, and
on children and adults living in the vicinity of brick kilns indicated that
large proportion of those individuals exposed to air pollution had remarkably
high degree of air-pollution-related health disorders such as bronchitis,
asthma and COPD.
The pollutants
believed to be dangerous to human health in KTM valley, apart from PM10,
are namely sulphurdioxide, nitrogendioxide
and carbonmonoxide —all emitted by vehicles
and industries. Arguably, the vehicular emission is the biggest culprit,
without the reduction of which the toxicity and the carcinogens in the ambient
air of Kathmandu will ever increase. Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) are extremely
dangerous to human health causing shortness of breath, wheezing, asthma attack
and chest pain which can even lead to heart attack; and the worst thing is they
react with the VOCs (volatile organic compounds) in the presence of sunlight to
produce tropospheric ozone the so-called ‘bad ozone’ which is the major
ingredient of photochemical smog—one
of the most dangerous air pollutants.
Breathworthy
Kathmandu
None of 3.5 million Kathmanduties is immune
to air-pollution-induced health hazards. With ever increasing numbers of
vehicles and factories in the valley, the breathing exercise is getting only more
hazardous.
Having diagnosed the cause, in theory, the
underlying solution is simple. Ban all sub-standard vehicles, substandard
fuels, and polluting factories in the valley. Promote environment-friendly mass
transports with efficient engines that consume less fuel, or operate on
electric or solar power. Plant more trees that absorb carbon emissions. Monitor the pollution level daily, to
measure the progress. And if need be, implement air pollution control
technologies—in which the harmful pollutants are converted to harmless or less
objectionable forms—through mechanisms such as absorption, combustion,
condensation and chemical treatment with the use of cyclones, electrostatic
precipitators, filters and scrubbers.
To make the valley breathworthy, all of
us can and must contribute to that end. General public, industries, NGOs, INGOs,
media, watchdogs, and the State. Obviously, those who are at higher hierarchy
in the pyramid must be prepared to discharge proportionally heavier duties.
