PESHAWAR: Women in Peshawar may have religious or personal reasons to cover their faces in public but a thick layer of smog that has recently blanketed the city has set a growing trend to wear face mask.

Moderate women, who avoid covering their faces in public, are seen wearing masks to protect themselves from the effects of smog.

“I have started wearing mask to protect myself from air pollution since the city has been engulfed by smog for the last 10 days,” said Memoona, a shopper in main Saddar Bazaar. Memoona’s colleague also wore mask to protect herself from inhaling toxic air.

Like women, men also use smog protection masks.

Layers of smog – a combination of fog and smoke – have blanketed the city of five million people that was declared the world’s third most polluted city across the world by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2016, said Prof Shafiq, an expert.

Expert blames bad roads, huge traffic, unplanned construction for growing air pollution in city

He said the WHO had conducted a survey in 3,000 cities around the world and declared Peshawar the third most polluted urban centre.

He said the whole country was in the grip of smog but Peshawar was in pretty bad condition.

Prof Shafiq said poor road infrastructure, unplanned construction activities, movement of over half million vehicles, including 22,000 rickshaws, and around 650 brick kilns, which burn rubber, were polluting the air of Peshawar.

An official of the Vehicle Emission Testing Station blamed old buses owned by various educational institutions and two-stroke rickshaws for the high concentration of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) in the air.

Millions of residents of the city take in polluted air but the provincial government, especially Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is taking few ‘cosmetic’ steps to cope with the growing menace of air pollution instead of launching proper mitigation plan.

The EPA findings released last year stated that the level of Particulate Matter (PM2.5) has breached the guidelines of the National Environmental Quality Standard (NEQS) in the provincial capital.

“The PM2.5 at all sampling locations in Peshawar is higher than the limits of NEQS. The biggest impact of particulate air pollution on public health is understood to be from long-term exposure to PM2.5 (10-15 years), which increases the age specific mortality risk,” revealed these findings.

Currently, the minimum level of PM2.5 in the air of Peshawar is 40 and the maximum 90, while the NEQS recommends that level of tiny particles in the air should not be more than 15 micrograms per cubic meter.

The increase of PM2.5 in the air becomes hazardous for human health and also reduces visibility.

The PM2.5 data was collected from 28 different locations of the city. The study found vehicular emissions, waste burning, construction work, debris, dust, broken roads, poor collection of waste, smoke discharged from brick kilns are major contributors to air pollution.

Similarly, the quantity of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) at all 28 points has exceeded NEQS limits too. However concentration of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) in the provincial capital is within limit.

Dr Adil Zareef said the disposal of the city’s garbage was also a major contributor to toxic air pollution as there was no proper mechanism for waste disposal but through burning it.

“The fumes are toxic,” observed Dr Zareef, who teaches medical sciences, and is also an environmentalist.

He suggested that the government impose heavy fine on environmentally-unfit vehicles.

EPA Director General Dr Mohammad Bashir Khan told Dawn that the open waste burning and vehicular emissions were polluting air.

He said the agency was in action to control air pollution and had directed the Cantonment Board, Peshawar Development Authority and Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar (WSSP) to stop burning waste at their disposal sites.

Dr Bashir said the EPA teams were regularly taking air wail out data on roads while all open burning of solid waste were strictly prohibited besides campaign against rubber burning in brick kilns. He said the agency had started collecting PM10 data from different locations which was not so alarming.

Officials of the Cantonment Board and WSSP denied the open burning of solid waste. WSSP general manager Engineer Ali Rehman said land had been acquired for dumping waste.

He said 1,016 tons of solid waste was generated in three towns of the city and 76 percent of it was lifted on daily basis.

The PDA collects 150- 200 tons of waste on a daily basis, while the Cantonment Board disposes of 50 tons of waste. All municipal bodies do not have high-tech facilities for the safe waste disposal.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2017