Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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Clean Air Day: Time to breathe
Clean Air Day, being marked today, is an opportunity to improve public understanding of air pollution, build awareness of how air pollution affects our health and explain the actions we can all take to tackle air pollution, helping to protect the environment and our health.
See the short (90 second) animated video explainer on the British Safety Council's Time to Breathe campaign, which is calling for outdoor workers, such as street cleaners and refuse workers, to be protected from the dangers of air pollution. The video makes clear why reducing exposure to toxic air has never been so urgent.
The British Safety Council is calling for three key changes:
1. For improvements to pollution monitoring across the UK
2. For the UK to adopt legal limits, using as a minimum standard, World Health Organisation limits for outdoor workers' exposure to the most dangerous air pollutants - PM2.5, PM10, Nitrogen Dioxide and Ozone. This is because for the UK's outdoor workers the street is their workplace
3. For substantially more research into the effects of exposure to ambient air pollution on outdoor workers.
Air pollution is a silent, invisible killer that is largely being ignored. But it is preventable. While toxic air is potentially harmful to everyone, the risk of exposure is greater for outdoor workers, for whom the street is their workplace. This means ambient air pollution must be fully recognised as the occupational health issue it is. It causes 40,000 early deaths a year and costs the UK economy a staggering £20 billion annually.
For many outdoor workers in the UK, the shocking reality is that drawing breath during their working day is shortening their life. For them, ambient air pollution has turned the simple, human act of breathing into a deadly occupational hazard. This forgotten army of outdoor workers are the people who deliver our letters and online shopping, help our children to cross the road, empty our bins, clean our streets, drive public transport, maintain our essential services, police our traffic or work on or near busy roads. They deserve better protection.
Unsafe air is not something society should simply accept. The benefits of pollution control far outweigh the costs. No one should be made ill by the job that they do.
"Air pollution is the UK's largest environmental health risk, greater than smoking and obesity," warns mike robinson, chief executive at the British Safety Council. "Indeed, the links between air pollution and illness are increasing. Therefore, we need better air pollution policies for a longer and healthier life.
We are calling on policymakers, and regulators to protect outdoor workers from the dangers of air pollution. Surely outdoor workers deserve the same legal protections as those on the factory floor or in offices. Let's make 2021 the year we help Britain's outdoor workers breathe easy at last."
Since its foundation in 1957, the British Safety Council has campaigned tirelessly to protect workers from accidents, hazards and unsafe conditions, and played a decisive role in the political process that has led to the adoption of landmark safety legislation in the UK. Its members in more than 60 countries are committed to protecting and improving the wellbeing of workers, believing that a healthy and safe work environment is also good for business.
17th June 2021