Tiny but deadly, this pollutant is filling your lungs

A new study revealed a pollutant, called particulate matter (PM) 2.5, can cause lung cancer and cardiac ailments and can stay buried inside the body for years. A first of its kind, the study has been carried out to find the causes of air pollution, reports Chetan Chauhan. What is PM 2.5

Updated on: Jun 27, 2010, 09:53:30 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The air in your city may appear clean but its smallest and least visible pollutant is its deadliest.

A new study revealed a pollutant, called particulate matter (PM) 2.5, can cause lung cancer and cardiac ailments and can stay buried inside the body for years.

In an air appropriation source study in six cities including Delhi and Mumbai, India’s pollution watchdog Central Pollution Control Board found PM 2.5, 20- 40 times smaller in size than human hair, has the highest carbon content.

The study also reveals the concentration of PM 2.5 is 300 per cent higher than the national average in Delhi and 50 per cent higher in Mumbai.

“PM 2.5 is very harmful as particles penetrate deep inside and can break the lung’s functioning systems,” said D.V.K. Vijayan of Delhi’s Patel Chest Institute, which is now conducting studies to find the exact impact of nano tubes on one’s body. “International research has shown these carbon particles can trigger respiratory ailments such as chronic asthma and its long exposure can cause lung cancer.”

Even though internationally PM 2.5 is considered a cause of major health problems, in India the research is poor in the absence of adequate monitoring of PM 2.5 levels.

“It (PM 2.5) has been rising rapidly in the last few years because of increase in vehicular emissions,” said Anumita Roy Chowdhury of Centre for Science and Environment.

The CPCB study based on analysis of pollutants found that higher the vehicular emission in a particular area, the more toxic PM 2.5 was.

A first of its kind, the study has been carried out to find the causes of air pollution and will be released next month.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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