Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Mega-Cities Far From Meeting Air Quality Standards

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 11 2006 (IPS) - Brazil's major cities will have to reduce their air pollution much more if they hope to comply with the new parameters for air quality established by the World Health Organzation (WHO). The WHO reduced the acceptable maximum level of the annual average for suspended particulates from 70 to 20 micrograms per cubic meter, cut the daily maximum limit of ozone from 120 to 100 micrograms, and the daily average of sulfur dioxide from 120 to 25 micrograms.

Sao Paulo, for example, has an average of 45 micrograms of suspended particulates per cubic meter — more than twice the WHO recommended limit.

“Now society, industry and the government are stimulated to make a great effort to reduce urban pollution,” Nelson da Cruz Gouveia, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo who participated in the revision of the index, told Tierramérica.

Every year, air pollution is responsible for the deaths of some 50,000 people in Brazil.