Controlling sources of air pollution

FE Team | Published: November 21, 2023 20:23:11

The quality of air of major urban centres of Bangladesh for instance, the capital city of Dhaka, or the port city of Chattogram, has often hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. It has been the poor quality attributable to its very high pollution content. Such reports on air quality had also never any dearth of information about the kind of pollutants and their sources. That apart, to monitor the levels of air pollution at different places and points of time, umpteen bodies and committees have been formed. So have also been enacted many laws over the past decades to combat air pollution and hold those responsible for it to account. But despite the existence of all these government bodies and laws to address the issue at hand, the air quality across the country continues to fall, at times beating world records.
After all such measures adopted to track pollution levels and keep people informed of those, the government is learnt to have launched yet another programme recently that will broadcast real-time air quality index (AQI) prepared automatically from the data provided by some 16 Continuous Air Quality Monitoring Systems (CAMS) from different points across the country. As reported, the AQI, to be so obtained through processing and analysing the CAMS-supplied data automatically online, would be made available to the public instantly from the website maintained by the department of environment (DoE). The reports further go, values of the AQI would also be categorised into different levels representing the degrees of hazards to public health they pose.
Undoubtedly, the advanced system to generate AQI for public consumption round the clock is a step forward in increasing the level of public awareness about the pollution content of the air they have been inhaling every moment and that would no doubt help them take appropriate measures to protect themselves against the dangers to their health. Unquestionably, it is a welcome move on the government's part. But questions remain, if the members of the public, though highly informed about air quality, can by themselves, change the situation, that is, control pollution level or take action against the sources of pollution. It is exactly at this point that the authorities need to focus.
Consider the findings from satellite data revealed recently (end of August) by an US-based energy policy institute that ranked Bangladesh among the world's most polluted countries followed by India and Nepal. What the report said was alarming in that Bangladesh's air contained particulate matter (of 2.5 microns in diameter, PM2.5), which is highly hazardous to health, in amount that was many times more at 74 micrograms as against the WHO-permitted 5.0 micrograms per cubic metre. Such high concentration of PM2.5, which can penetrate lungs and other highly sensitive organs of human body, ultimately contaminates blood with the result that the victim population's average life expectancy is shortened by 6.8 years. That means Bangladeshi people are adequately informed of the precarious existence they have been leading due to the highly contaminated air they breathe in. But little has so far been done, say, to effectively limit emission of pollutants like dusts and fumes from, say, the construction sites, brick fields, industries or motorised vehicles. So, alongside launching advanced monitoring systems, what the suffering public needs most is action to effectively control the sources that emit pollutants in the air.