6 steps you can take to protect yourself from London's air pollution
You get to your desk after an hour breathing the dust-filled air of our 150-year-old Tube system or a ‘healthy’ stroll along a main street choked with idling vans and buses. Even before the day has begun, your hair feels filthy, your clothes smirched and your chest tight. And if you blow your nose — eugh, let’s not even think about what comes out. London has suffered from illegal levels of air pollution since 2010 and unseasonal weather like last year’s scorching summer sunshine makes it worse. Although the nitrogen oxide spewed out by diesel engines and the deadly PM2.5 particles that lodge in our lungs are invisible, we are becoming more aware of them. A Friends of the Earth study from 2017 found Londoners to be more clued up on the topic of air quality than people anywhere else in the UK, with nine out of 10 in the capital believing their air quality to be at ‘crisis levels’. Acknowledging the problem is an important first step: the second is the construction of a post-pollution London, starting with City Hall’s introduction of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone, or ULEZ, in central London on 8 April.
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