Clean Air Day - How we can all make a difference
Clean Air Day is on Thursday 15th June. Now in its seventh year is an initiative to help drive a positive shift in public knowledge and action. The day is a chance to find out more about air pollution, share information, and make our air cleaner and healthier for everyone.
What can you do this clean air day to make a positive change?
- Walk, cycle and scoot more, especially using the back streets away from polluting traffic.
- If you do have to drive, switch your engine off when you're stationary, and try to choose electric vehicles where you can.
Cllr. Lee Dillon, Chairman of the Joint Public Protection Committee, said: "On Clean Air Day, in particular, we want to get the message across that everybody can have a positive impact on air quality and we want to encourage residents and businesses to use alternative means of transport which will help to reduce air pollution and limit its impact on their health and that of others."
In 2021 the Public Protection Partnership 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.
With this funding The Public Protection Partnership have increased signage near schools, within the area, to raise awareness of the harms of engine idling. They have also worked with schools and pupils to engage them in some awareness campaigns, such as the designing a bumper sticker competition.
Raising awareness and encouraging behaviour changes are extremely important. 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. 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/
