Joburg’s killer air
JOBURG - Despite its efforts to curb air pollution, Joburg has extremely poor air quality, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
A 2014 report by the WHO revealed that Joburg had the highest levels of air pollution in South Africa.
The City of Joburg has made strides towards reducing pollution through its green initiatives, but its levels of polluted air remained the highest, followed by Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban.
Of the 1 600 cities from 91 countries that the organisation observed, only a small percentage actually monitored and regulated their levels of air pollution.
The WHO issued a number of guidelines for particulate matter (PM), which are small particles of dust and chemical pollutants that find their way past human’s natural defences and lodge deep inside the lungs, and have the greatest effect on human health.
According to the organisation most fine particulate matter comes from fuel combustion, both from mobile sources such as vehicles and from stationary sources such as power plants, industry, households or biomass burning.
The organisation’s latest guidelines recommend a maximum limit of 10 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) or PM 2.5 (fine particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometres) and no more than 20 µg/m3 for PM 10.
PM 10 levels in Joburg were 98 µg/m3.
The WHO found that air pollution killed an estimated 3.7 million people around the world in 2012 – caused mainly by strokes, heart disease, lung cancer, respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cardiovascular disease.
