Clean Air Day - How Bumper Stickers Remind Motorists to Switch off Their Engines near Schools
Today is Clean Air Day the UK's largest air pollution campaign, bringing together communities, businesses, schools and the health sector.
In 2021 the Public Protection Partnership, (a shared Environmental Health service provided by Bracknell Forest Council, West Berkshire Council and Wokingham Borough Council) were awarded £259,406 from the government’s Air Quality Grant. The Air Quality Grant is a national programme aimed at helping councils develop and implement measures to benefit schools, businesses and communities and reduce the impact of dirty air on people’s health.
One of the most recent success stories of the project, involved the design of a ‘bumper sticker’. School children across the three local authorities were asked to make a design for a car sticker which would encourage the driver behind them to switch off their engines when appropriate to do so, saving emissions from idling. Having received 348 total entries, schools and the PPP Environmental Quality team voted for the most impactful design where a design submitted by Emily, a year 6 pupil from Ascot Heath Primary School, Bracknell Forest, came out on top.
Exposure to high long-term concentrations of harmful pollutants such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) has been studied to significantly impact our health, especially those who are vulnerable - air pollution is recognised in Europe as the single largest environmental health risk. Gaining a better understanding of local concentrations of these pollutants is a key step towards planning future actions to reduce exposure. Whilst the project will help to identify future measures to reduce exposure at schools, the grant also allows us to act now on engine idling through education and awareness.
For more information on the work PPP do with regards to Air Quality please see link below:
https://publicprotectionpartnership.org.uk/environmental-health/air-quality/
