Staff Reporter :
Air pollution in the capital city increased by 10.2 percent in 2020 as compared 2019. It is 5.2 times higher than the tolerable level, according to a study of the Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies (CAPS) at Stamford University.
This information was given by Dr Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumdar at a press conference on the occasion of publishing the scientific results of the Stamford Atmospheric Pollution Study Center (CAPS) with the collaboration of Bangladesh Environmental Movement-(Bapa) titled ‘Measurement of Air Pollution Levels at 70 Places in the capital City’ at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) on Saturday.
At that time, city planners have demanded the implementation of the Clean Air Act to prevent pollution.
According to the study, Bangladesh topped the world in terms of air pollution in 2019 and 2020. Dhaka is the second most megacity city in terms of pollution.
In such a context, in 2020, two organizations conducted a survey in 70 significant points of capital to find out the level and cause of air pollution.
At the release of the study, it was also claimed that unplanned and uncontrolled road digging caused the 30 per cent air pollution alone.
After that about 29 percent occurred due to brick kilns and factories.
And about 15 percent of air pollution comes from black smoke from vehicles.
Besides, smoke from household and cooking stoves pollutes 9 percent of the air.
According to the report, the amount of dust per cubic meter in Dhaka was 335.4 milligrams which is more than five times of the normal level. Research institutes have made several recommendations to prevent
air pollution, including spraying water for two to three hours in a row.
The causes of air pollution are mentioned; among the natural causes are meteorological and geographical causes. Among the man-made factors, lack of urban planning, weakness of law, limitation of law enforcement is one of the reasons.
The city planners demanded to strengthen all the concerned institutions including the environment department to prevent air pollution as to well as find out the reasons for non-implementation of the plan.
According to the report, the most polluted area of capital city is Old Dhaka and Low pollution in Mohammadpur, Pallabi and Cantonment areas.
And air pollution is increasing at an alarming rate in city’s Dhanmondi, Gulshan, Banani and Badda.
Air monitoring devices of some organisations were used to assess the quality of air.
The quality of air is mainly determined by assessing Particulate Matter PM-1, PM-2 and PM-10 in the air.
The study has been done based on the level of air pollution determined by World Health Organisation (WHO).
