Air pollution is all around us. Indoors, outdoors, in cities and in the countryside. It affects us all, whether we realize it or not. For the longest time, we have taken the air we breathe for granted. There was air, there were smells, there was cold wind, there was hot air.
One hundred years ago, Bangkok was in the throes of a public transit overhaul. For centuries prior, Bangkokians had used the web of canals—or khlongs—throughout the city as a primary means of transportation. In the early 1900s, the city gradually stopped dredging new canals and started filling in others to pave the way for a new mode of transportation: the automobile.
Before moving to Los Angeles and initiating a successful career in music production with Shania Twain, Wyclef Jean, Shakira and many other artists, Sadaharu Yagi grew up in the Japanese town of Kitakyushu. In the 1960s, the city faced huge environmental problems—and the highest levels of air pollution in the country.
Transportation produces 25 per cent of emissions in Latin America and the Caribbean. With the air of most of the region’s capital cities becoming literally unbreathable, biking has captured the imagination of thousands of Latin Americans. Four of the main capitals have taken steps to promote sustainable mobility options to beat air pollution and are encouraging pedaling as a concrete measure to clean the air.
In September 2015, the sky above Kalimantan, Indonesia, turned a dark yellow as fires swept across the region’s peatlands emitting a dense haze. The streets became empty of people and the air— thick with smoke—difficult to breathe.
“Whenever I recall that moment, it's always traumatic for me,” Emmanuela Shinta, a youth Dayak activist who was in Kalimantan that day, told UN Environment. “Our city became like a dead city.”
“Oh, here comes one now,” the engineer says, pointing up. In a blink, a capsule about the size of a paint can has shot across the ceiling in a pneumatic tube. Inside is a sample of soil collected from one of hundreds of monitoring spots across Jiangsu province, on China’s central eastern coast.
Deep inside the layers of ice sitting atop the Andes Mountains in Peru is evidence of the earliest human-caused air pollution. Within the core of the 1,200-year-old Quelccaya Ice Cap, scientists have found traces of lead and mercury, the chemicals used after the Spanish occupation, in the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia.
Chemicals are all around us. They keep our homes clean, produce better goods, improve health care and are major contributors to national and world economies. As the world’s population approaches 8 billion, the sound management of chemicals and waste is becoming ever more important—especially as they can affect air quality.
To fight air pollution, a global menace that claims 7 million lives each year, everybody has to do their part – from governments, to businesses to individuals.
To mark this year’s World Environment Day, Veolia—a global waste management group with 171,000 employees in 40 countries—has thrown considerable weight behind the movement to clear the air.
From clean-ups in Tokyo to tree planting in Zimbabwe, World Environment Day was celebrated around the globe. With a theme of air pollution, China hosted the international day of action. Xi Jinping, the country’s president, was clear in his call for international cooperation: “Humankind only has one planet. Environmental conservation and sustainable development are the common responsibility of all countries.
