Children’s anger over escalating levels of pollution
YOUNGSTERS, AGED 8, ASKING COUNCIL TO IMPROVE AIR QUALITY AFTER DISCOVERING TOXICITY LEVELS ARE IN BREACH OF EU LAW
FOR the last few years, Ruth Todhunter and her family have become frustrated with the increase of air pollution near their home in Longsight.
In an attempt to see if anything could be done to tackle the toxic air where she lived, Ruth contacted the British Lung Foundation and told them that she was concerned.
To her surprise, she was loaned a Zephyr Monitor, a device that can detect air quality measurements, and asked to measure the toxic air outside her daughter’s school on Northmoor Road for a month.
The results highlighted that air outside the school contained regular spikes of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a dangerous form of air pollution.
The levels of NO2 regularly peaked as high as 300 ug/m3. According to EU law, hourly spikes should not exceed 200 ug/m3 more than 18 times a year.
“It made me really angry,” Ruth said. “I thought it was a relatively quiet road, it’s next to a park and lots of green areas, so it was quite surprising. The measurements were worse at school drop-offs.”
At the same time, Ruth’s daughter, Jess, 8, was becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of pollution across the world having recently watched an episode of Operation Ouch on CBBC which looked into the matter.
After learning about the dangers of air pollution to people’s lungs and that it can be a trigger for asthma attacks, Jess and her friend Jannat, also 8, decided to take action in order to protect one of their friends who has asthma.
The pair joined Ruth in measuring other locations near to their home and school to see if levels of toxic air continued. They found an annual mean level of NO2 at 47 ug/m3 – above the annual legal levels of NO2 at 40 ug/m3.
Jess and Jannat have now launched a petition demanding urgent action. They are also campaigning for a school street for every child in Greater Manchester – where the road at school gates is closed to traffic.
“Our school isn’t on a main road, but we found at certain times of the day, the pollution levels were really high,” Jess said.
“We want Manchester City Council to put a school street outside every school in Manchester so that we don’t have to breathe in smelly fumes at the school gates every day that are damaging our lungs and our health.” Jannat added: “We were really worried about one of our friends who has asthma after learning that air pollution can make asthma worse.” “We’re poisoning our children,” Ruth said. “We need to act now in order to protect people’s health. We’re doing all this stuff for coronavirus and the pandemic but I feel like nothing is happening about this crisis.” Jess and Jannat were recently named as Junior Clean Air Champions by Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation. A Clean Air GM spokesperson said: “Greater Manchester’s ten local authorities have worked together on a joint Clean Air Plan which includes proposals for a government mandated GM-wide Clean Air Zone, which will cover all 500sq miles of our city region.
“This was consulted upon last year, is expected to be introduced next year and will bring harmful nitrogen dioxide within legal limits in as short a time as possible.”
We found at certain times of the day the pollution levels were really high
Jess Todhunter