FIGHTING FOR AIR

摘要

During a bright spell of cold, settled weather at the end of January, air in some parts of London became so polluted that the quality was worse than in the smog-filled Chinese capital Beijing. London mayor Sadiq Khan issued his first ever "very high" pollution alert under a new monitoring system set up to warn of the dangers of what he described as "shameful" and "toxic" air. Researchers estimate bad air causes a total of 9,500 additional deaths in the capital each year. No wonder, then, Khan has made the issue his "number one" priority - above policing, transport and housing. And as part of that, he has the construction industry firmly in his sights. Because while you might assume the impact of construction activity to be small beer next to the millions of cars, buses and trains moving around the capital, it has a disproportionate part to play in the problem. The London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI) estimates 12% of London's damaging nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, 15% of large particulate matter emissions, known as PM10, and a smaller but still significant amount of the most dangerous fine particles, dubbed PM2.5, come from site-based plant and machinery.