There is today a major health crisis due to toxic air pollution exposure in every city in Europe, America, China and around the world.
Whilst there is now some regulation that has recently been introduced to control toxic exhaust emissions there is no regulation whatsoever regarding the public’s exposure to polluting, non-exhaust, microscopic particulate matter from millions of metallised-rubber tyres and brake pads.
This particulate matter causes heart and lung disease particularly in children, also cancer and premature death. It not only damages lung growth and brain development but affects every stage of our lives. It can cause asthma and death in susceptible children and those who are elderly.
The scale of the problem of toxic pollution exposure in every major city around the world is unknown and unappreciated. It is, without doubt, the single most important challenge to health worldwide, today. Despite this, there is no regulation either by governments or by motor manufacturers. The urgency of the matter and the scale of the problem requires urgent action on both an international level and on a national level, globally. This is a major, modern health crisis that is damaging all of our children who live in urban conurbations anywhere on the globe.
An estimated 1.1m tonnes of toxic tyre waste including highly dangerous, polluting particulates are discharged into the environment/atmosphere each year from a combined total of about 590 million cars currently in the United States and Europe, alone.*
Currently, the toxicity of the air that we and our children breathe, increases every day from both the nitrogen oxide (NO2) in exhaust emissions and from the highly toxic, non-exhaust particulate matter that we breathe.
It is an international scandal in which currently no government accepts a duty of care to ensure its citizens are not irreparably damaged by polluted air. We are all entitled to clean air and clean water. That is our right!
Otherwise, we ourselves, our children and our society will become more sick with every passing year.
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Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Featured image is from Greenpeace
