Protection of air from pollution in Russia and the world

Protection of air from pollution has become one of the priorities of the society today. After all, if a person can live without water for several days, without food - a few weeks, then without air can not do and a few minutes. After all, breathing is a continuous process.

We live on the bottom of the fifth, air, ocean of the planet, as the atmosphere is often called. If it were not, life on Earth could not have arisen.

Composition of air

The composition of atmospheric air has been constant since the time of humanity. We know that 78% of the air is nitrogen, 21% is oxygen. The content of argon and carbon dioxide in the air together is about 1%. And all other gases in total give us an insignificant figure of 0.0004%.

What about the rest of the gases? They are many: methane, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, helium, hydrogen sulphide and others. While their amount in the air does not change, everything is fine. But with increasing concentration of any of them, air pollution occurs. And these gases literally poison our lives.

If people want to maintain their health, it is vital to protect the air from pollution.

Consequences of changing the composition of air

Air pollution is also dangerous because people have a variety of allergic reactions. According to doctors, the allergy is most often caused by the fact that the human immune system can not recognize synthetic chemicals created not by nature, but by man. Therefore, the protection of air purity plays an important role in preventing allergic diseases of man.

Every year there is a huge amount of new chemicals. They change the composition of the atmosphere in large cities, where the number of people suffering from respiratory diseases increases as a result. No one is surprised that the poisonous cloud of smog almost constantly hangs over the industrial centers.

But even the ice-covered and absolutely uninhabited Antarctica did not stay away from the pollution process. And it's not surprising, because the atmosphere is the most mobile of all the shells of the Earth. And the movement of air can not stop the borders between states, nor the mountain systems, nor the oceans.

Sources of pollution

Thermal power plants, metallurgical and chemical plants are the main air pollutants. Smoke from the pipes of such enterprises is blown by the wind for long distances, leading to the spread of harmful substances to tens of kilometers from the source.

For large cities, traffic jams are typical, in which thousands of cars with running engines are idle. Exhaust gases contain carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, products of incomplete combustion of fuel and suspended particles. Each of them is dangerous in its own way to health.

Carbon monoxide interferes with the supply of oxygen to the body, causes an exacerbation of diseases of the heart and blood vessels. Solid particles enter the lungs and settle in them, causing asthma, allergic diseases. Hydrocarbons and nitric oxide are a source of destruction of the ozone layer and cause photochemical smog in cities.

Could a great and terrible

The first serious signal that it is necessary to protect the air from pollution, was the "great smog" in 1952 in London. As a result of stagnation over the city of fog and sulphurous gas, formed during the combustion of coal in fireplaces, thermal power plants and boiler houses, the capital of Great Britain was suffocated for three days due to lack of oxygen.

The victims of smog were about 4 thousand people, and another 100 thousand were exacerbated by respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. And for the first time massively talked about the need for air protection in the city.

The result was the adoption in 1956 of the law "On Clean Air," which prohibited the furnace from coal. Since then, in most countries, the protection of air from pollution has been enshrined in legislation.

The Russian law on air protection

In Russia, the main normative-legal act in this area is the Federal Law "On the Protection of Atmospheric Air."

He established air quality standards (hygienic and sanitary) and standards for harmful emissions. The law requires the state registration of polluting and hazardous substances and the need for a special permit for their release. Production and use of fuel is possible only with fuel certification for atmospheric safety.

If the degree of danger to humans and nature is not established, the release of such substances into the atmosphere is prohibited. It is forbidden to operate economic facilities that do not have an installation for cleaning the emitted gases and control systems. Vehicles with excess concentrations of hazardous substances in emissions are prohibited.

The law on the protection of atmospheric air also establishes the duties of citizens and enterprises. For the release of harmful substances into the atmosphere in volumes exceeding the existing standards, they bear legal and material responsibility. At the same time, the payment of the imposed fines does not exempt from the obligation to install systems for the purification of gaseous wastes.

The most "dirty" cities in Russia

Measures for air protection are especially important for those settlements that lead the list of cities in Russia with the most acute environmental conditions, including pollution of the atmosphere. This is Azov, Achinsk, Barnaul, Beloyarsky, Blagoveshchensk, Bratsk, Volgograd, Volzhsky, Dzerzhinsk, Ekaterinburg, Winter, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kurgan, Kyzyl, Lesosibirsk, Magnitogorsk, Minusinsk, Moscow, Naberezhnye Chelny, Neryungri, Nizhnekamsk, Nizhny Tagil, Novokuznetsk , Novocherkassk, Norilsk, Rostov-on-Don, Selenginsk, Solikamsk, Stavropol, Sterlitamak, Tver, Ussuriisk, Chernogorsk, Chita, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

Protection of cities from air pollution

The air protection in the city should begin with the elimination of traffic jams, especially during rush hours. Therefore, traffic junctions are constructed to avoid standing at traffic lights, one-way traffic is introduced on parallel streets, etc. To circumvent the number of vehicles, bypass routes are built past cities. In many large cities of the world, there are days when in the central regions it is allowed to travel only by public transport, and it is better to leave a personal car in the garage.

In European countries, such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Lithuania, locals consider the best kind of urban transport a bicycle. It is economical, does not require fuel, does not pollute the air. And the traffic jams are not terrible for him. And the benefit of cycling gives an additional advantage.

But the quality of air in cities depends not only on transport. Industrial enterprises are equipped with air purification systems, pollution level is constantly monitored. The factory pipes try to make it higher, so that the smoke is not scattered in the city itself, but is carried away beyond its limits. This does not solve the problem as a whole, but it helps to reduce the concentration of hazardous substances in the atmosphere. For the same purpose, the construction of new "dirty" enterprises in major cities is prohibited.

This can be considered a half-measure. And the real measure is the introduction of non-waste technologies, in which there is simply no place for waste generation.

Fighting fires

Many remember the summer of 2010, when many cities in Central Russia were captured by smog from burning peat bogs. Residents of some settlements had to be evacuated not only in connection with the danger of fires, but also because of the heavy smoke of the territory. Therefore, air protection measures should include prevention and control of forest and peat fires, as natural pollutants of the atmosphere.

The international cooperation

The protection of air from pollution is not only a matter for Russia or for another individual country. After all, as already mentioned, the movement of air does not recognize state borders. Therefore, international cooperation is simply vital.

The main coordinator of actions of various countries on environmental policy is the United Nations. The UN General Assembly defines the main directions of environmental policy, the principles of relations between countries on the protection of nature. She conducts international conferences on the most acute environmental problems, develops recommendations for the protection of nature, including air protection measures. This helps the development of cooperation of many states of the world to protect the environment.

It was the UN that initiated the signed multilateral treaties on the protection of atmospheric air, protection of the ozone layer and many other documents on the environmental well-being of the countries of the world. After all, now everyone understands - Earth we have one at all, and the atmosphere is also one.