[sustran] (Fwd) Roads are Polluted But Indoors are Worse

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

This was forwarded by Ramon Fernan and may be of interest to sustran-discuss participants.

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From:          "Damon Lynch" <damon at info.com.ph>
To:            "Ramon Fernan III" <cycad at pacific.net.ph>
Subject:       Roads are Polluted But Indoors are Worse
(http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/june98/
Date:          Mon, 6 Jul 1998 10:53:03 +0800
Importance:    Normal
----------------------------------------------------

            IPS news reports appear daily in English, German, Finnish,
Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish.
            To subscribe, please contact us at: Africa, Asia, Caribbean,
Europe, Latin America, North America.


ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Roads are Polluted But Indoors are Worse
By Dev Raj

NEW DELHI, Jun 25 (IPS) - Vehicular emissions in the Indian capital are
affecting people who stay indoors even more than those on the roads, says a
new scientific study.
''Housewives are particularly affected because they are also exposed to
pollutants from household activities such as cooking and cleaning,'' says
Nandita Shukla, researcher at India's prestigious Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR), who led the study.

Delhi has long gained a reputation for being the world's fourth
most-polluted city with civic authorities helpless in containing a wild
growth in vehicle population, enforce pollution norms or build a mass rapid
transport system (MRTS).

Various studies have shown the ill-effects of high concentrations of
vehicular emissions on the health of say traffic policemen who are badly
exposed but are yet to be issued basic protective equipment such as masks.

But the new study by the CSIR carried out in collaboration with the Central
Pollution Control Board (CPCB) indicates that housewives are as much
candidates for gas masks as are traffic policemen.

What the study proved significantly was that vehicular pollutants easily
penetrate homes and then remain trapped inside mingling and reacting with
other household emissions to produce a variety of dangerous gaseous
chemicals.

''Every home is like a large chemical reactor in which chemicals continually
enter and exit with the pressure difference between indoors and outdoors
playing a major role,'' says Mahendra Pandey, scientist at the CPCB.

Indoor pollutants generated in the nearly 2,000 homes surveyed by Shukla and
Pandey include radon, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde,
volatile organic compounds, chlorinated compounds dust and particulates.

To these are added the products of internal combustion engines, particularly
respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) from diesel engines which
because they are less than 10 microns in size readily penetrate homes and
are absorbed by the lungs.

Pandey cited a Polish study which showed the great dangers posed to human
health by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) which enter the body as
RSPM and cause damage to DNA and stunt newborn babies.

Pandey and Shukla found higher concentrations indoors than outside of carbon
monoxide which is particularly bad news for pregnant women in India because
70 percent of them are already anaemic, according to UNICEF estimates.

Carbon monoxide hampers oxygen delivery to tissues through the blood and
adversely affects foetal development by interfering with the metabolic
functions of placental cells. High concentrations in closed environments can
be fatal.

The study found East Delhi the worst affected area because of additional
pollutants wafting in from a power plant and from an industrial belt nearby.
''We found more than fifty five percent of people in the area suffering from
respiratory disorders half of whom could be classified as severe,'' said
Pandey.

Adult females as a group were the worst sufferers and most of them were
under treatment for allergic rhinitis or asthma caused mainly by SPM with
cases increasing at the rate of 20 percent per annum.

The daily average exposure of SPM alone on housewives in all areas of East
Delhi was found to be six times the safe standard prescribed by the World
Health Organisation (WHO) of 120 micrograms per cubic metre every day.

Interestingly the levels of SPM indoors were found to be worse during the
night because of the natural phenomenon of atmospheric inversion which
afflicts Delhi, Pandey said.

At sunset the phenomenon gets activated trapping surface air and leaving
little room for the dispersion of SPM until sunrise when surface heating
destroys the inversion layer and literally gives people 'breathing space.'

Office buildings may have been safer than homes mainly because of air
conditioning but many of them generate significant amounts of pollutants
from electronic devices such as ozone and radon, the consequences of which
are yet to be studied.

''Although studies are yet to be conducted on the environment inside office
buildings people are seriously talking about the sick building syndrome
which may be affecting a large number of people in unknown ways,'' Pandey
said.

The study concluded that the diversity and variability in concentrations of
various pollutants make continuous monitoring important in both homes and
offices as well as outdoors.

''There is a great need for public awareness and cooperation which are
curiously missing in spite of the established ill-effects of atmospheric
pollution on millions of people in Delhi,'' Pandey said. (End/IPS/rdr/an/98)