Licensing polluting activities

Licensing polluting activities should be institutionalized and given methodological guidance. Limit values for emissions, and best available technology (BAT) options are to be established.

The “polluter pays principle” should be implemented, and the financial instruments should help re-directing the development of economy towards less polluting options, e.g. cleaner production programmes.

Situation in Russia. There is a special system of the state ecological expertise. When a license for new investment is issued and its construction completed, the operator has to prepare norms listing emission sources and their annual limits on the basis of what is permitted. The operator is then obliged to verify these norms regularly. Unfortunately, in most cases, verification is done on the basis of energy and mass balance rather than emission measurements. Fully automatic and continuous emission monitoring is often absent.

BASIC REGULATIONS for mobile sources

Basic regulations to combat air pollution by mobile sources like fuel standards or environmental requirements for motor fuels and modern exhaust gas emission standards for vehicles, which are already common in Europe, can improve the situation.

 

INSPECTION

Compliance with the norms for stationary sources is controlled by the State Ecological Inspectorate, and is established in most of the NIS through instrumental measurements.

 

ECONOMIC INSTRUMENTS

The available economic instruments in the NIS are emission charges and fines, established in general for pollutant classes, depending on their toxicity. Fines are applied when emissions exceed standards, or are several times higher. All money collected is channeled to the National Budget or to National or Regional Environmental Fund, where existing, from where it is then allocated for different environmental projects.

Inspection of in-use vehicles should be systematic and inspectors and road police have to be well equipped for this task.

 

FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS AND POLICIES ACTING AT THE LEVEL OF TRADE

Also, the use of financial instruments and policies acting at the level of trade (e.g. those restricting the import and marketing of obsolete vehicles) is a powerful measure.

 

URBAN AIR MONITORING

Problem solving should start with its analysis. Urban air monitoring is one the ways, and there are a lot of things have to be done.

Let’s look at situation in Russia.

1. Data from urban monitoring are available for selected pollutants.

2. None of the data are very reliable. The main reason is low precision of the 20 minutes sampling. More reliable continuous or automated sampling is generally not yet available.

3. Also, urban air monitoring stations are not always properly sited so the monitoring results are inadequate to represent population exposure.

4. However, the most important weakness of any urban monitoring in Russia is the lack of capacity to fully monitor and analyze particulate matter, taking into account its size composition.

HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT

It is still worth noting that health impact assessments have not yet been combined with licencing procedures in a single permit procedure.

Health concerns should be part of the decision-making process for new investments and health authorities or professionals have to be involved in these decisions.

 

PUBLIC AWARENESS

Public awareness should be rapidly raised. Only then will political attention focus on the issue, and direct the necessary resources to environmental health care.

 

INDOOR AIR POLLUTION

Solid fuel

Many people in industrialized nations give little thought to central heating, electric lighting, and flick-of-a-switch cooking. But more than half of the people in the world rely on solid fuels to heat and light their homes and cook their food.

Unhealthy home fires. An assessment of solid fuel use reveals that continued widespread global dependence on such fuels for household needs will impede success in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals. image: Mikkel Ostergaard/Panos Pictures

 

This percentage varies widely between countries and regions, ranging from 77%, 74%, and 74% in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific Region, respectively, to 36% in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, 16% in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Central and Eastern Europe. In most industrialized countries, solid fuel use falls to the < 5% mark.

Cooking and heating with solid fuels on open fires or traditional stoves in poorly ventilated indoor environments leads to high levels of indoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution comprises a variety of health-damaging pollutants including particles, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides (mainly from coal), formaldehyde, and carcinogens, such as benzo[a]pyrene and benzene.

Studies from Asia, Africa, and the Americas have shown that indoor air pollution levels are extremely high in households that rely on biomass fuel or coal: for example, 24-hr mean levels for PM10 in homes using biomass fuels range from 300 to 3,000 µg/m3. By comparison, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) annual air pollution standard for PM10 is 50 µg/m³ and WHO AQG – 20 µg/m³. Thus, typical concentrations of indoor air pollutants exceed many times the generally accepted guideline limits for outdoor air pollution.

Indoor air pollution has been associated with a wide range of health outcomes, and the evidence for these associations was classified as strong, moderate.

There is consistent evidence that exposure to indoor air pollution increases the risk of pneumonia and other acute lower respiratory infections (ALRIs) among children under 5 years of age, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer (in relation to coal use) among adults above 30 years of age. Young children are often carried on their mother’s back during cooking or kept close to the warm hearth. Consequently, children spend many hours breathing indoor air pollution during their first year of life, when their developing airways and immature immune systems make them particularly vulnerable to hazardous pollutants.

The evidence for a link with cancer, asthma, cataracts, and tuberculosis was considered moderate.

Given limited available studies to date, there is tentative evidence for an association between indoor air pollution and adverse pregnancy outcomes, in particular low birth weight, ischaemic heart disease, interstitial lung disease, and nasopha-ryngeal and laryngeal cancers.

Indoor air pollution was identified as the eighth most important risk factor and responsible for 2.7% of the global burden of disease. Globally, indoor air pollution from solid fuel use accounted for 1.6 million deaths and 39 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs; a measure combining years of life lost due to disability and death) in the year 2000. In developing countries with high-mortality, indoor air pollution was responsible for 3.7% of the overall disease bur-den, making it the most important risk factor after malnutrition, unsafe sex, and lack of safe water and adequate sanitation.

 

Environmental tobacco smoke

Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is also extremely dangerous to children's health.

An estimated 700 million children worldwide breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke. Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is associated with a range of harmful effects in children, such as respiratory tract infections, coughing and wheezing, worsening of asthma, and middle ear disease. Other suspected links include cardiovascular disease later in life, and possibly neuro-behavioral harm.

Exposure of pregnant women to environmental tobacco smoke is associated with low birth weight. ETS is associated also with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.