Cardiff has the highest level of NO2 in Wales and 5 percent of all deaths each year can be attributed to air pollution in Cardiff.
1 in 10 lung cancer cases in the UK are related to exposure to ambient air pollution, according to the report from The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) .
Those particles in air pollutants are small enough to be inhaled deeply into the lung and then cause chronic disease and around 40,000 deaths each year in the UK are caused by air pollution.
PM 2.5 is often described as ‘particles of less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter’ and its concentration is used as the evaluation of air quality. Average PM2.5 concentration in UK is around 15 μg/m3 which is higher to the World Health Organization’s recommended limit of 10 micrograms per cubic metre.
A 10-μg/m3 incremental increase in long-term average ambient PM2.5 concentrations is associated with approximately a 6% increased risk of all-cause mortality and a 15% increased risk of cardiovascular disease mortality, according to a 2013 meta-analysis of studies.
Air pollutants mainly come from petrol and diesel-engined motor vehicles when they burn gasoline and then emit a wide variety of particular pollutants. Cardiff has the highest level of NO2 in Wales and 5 percent of all deaths each year can be attributed to air pollution in Cardiff. This issue has raised awareness of Cardiff Council.