Air Pollution

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

With winter around the corner, air pollution levels rise at an alarming rate. Stubble burning, vehicular emissions, construction activities, fire crackers and other factors contribute to degrading air quality. 

These can lead to breathing issues and aggravate diseases and health conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), respiratory infections and cardiovascular diseases.

Concerns

• Stubble burning, vehicular emissions, construction activities, fire crackers contribute to degrading air quality.
• These can lead to breathing issues and aggravate diseases and health conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), respiratory infections and cardiovascular diseases.
• The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared air pollution as a public health emergency and more than 90 per cent of the global pollution is enduring toxic, polluted outdoor air.
• Smog is a mixture of smoke and air pollution, can damage lungs.
• Smog can comprise airborne particulate matter, mostly PM 2.5 and PM 10, that can have adverse health effects.

PM 2.5 over PM 10

• This is a fine, inhalable particle, generally 2.5 micrometres of diameter or smaller. 
• The combustion of gasoline, oil, diesel fuel or wood produces much of the PM 2.5. 
• Due to its smaller size, the particulate matter can be drawn deep in the lungs and can be more harmful as compared to PM 10. 
• It can penetrate the lung deeply, irritate and corrode the epithelial walls and consequently impair lung function.
• PM 2.5 have small diameters but they can spread over large surface areas. 
• They are “capable of carrying various toxic stuff, passing through the filtration of nose hair, reaching the end of the respiratory tract with airflow and accumulating there by diffusion, damaging other parts of the body through air exchange in the lung.
• The ‘Harvard Six Cities Study’, published in 1996, revealed that PM 2.5 was one of the causative factors of human non-accidental death.
• In this study, PM 2.5 was positively related to daily morality of humans, particularly the elderly (RR =1.5 per cent, 95 per cent CI: 1.1–1.9 per cent).”

Pollution Impacts 

• While it is a common notion that air pollution mostly affects lungs,
• Other body organs too can be damaged due to continuous exposure to polluted air. 
• For instance, air pollution can damage skin and cause premature ageing and problems like rashes, wrinkles, discoloration, pigmentation and so on. 
• Exposure to polluted outdoor air has been proven to be harmful to the human eye. 
• Common eye problems caused by pollution are watery eyes, soreness, redness, itching sensation, dry eyes and allergy. 
• Other than this, air pollution can have adverse effects on the cardiovascular, nervous, digestive and urinary systems. 
• Due to air pollution, there have been increasing cases of heart diseases and cancer.

AQI levels mean

• As air pollution is increasing day by day, it is important to adopt various measures and steps to minimise the harmful impact on your health. 
• To know about the air quality, you can easily refer to the air quality index (AQI), which is a daily measure of the quality of air. 
• The main purpose is to calculate or measure how air pollution affects health and help people become more aware, especially those who suffer from serious or chronic illnesses caused by exposure to pollutants. 

The categories of AQI are: 

• Good (0-50), 
• Satisfactory (51–100), 
• Moderately polluted (101–200), 
• Poor (201–300), 
• Very poor (301–400), 
• Severe (401-500).