Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Fighting Ozone Pollution

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 10 2003 (IPS) - The Sao Paulo government's environmental clean-up agency aims to reduce the proportion of olefins (volatile hydrocarbons) in gasoline from 30 to five percent in order to fight urban ozone pollution. The reaction of olefins and nitrogen oxides, with the sun serving as the catalyst, produces ozone, a three-oxygen molecule. There were 82 days last year in which ozone in Sao Paulo reached levels that are harmful to human health.

In the stratosphere, the ozone layer serves to protect life on Earth, but in the lower atmosphere it is a pollutant that causes respiratory irritation, inflames lungs, and is risk factor for lung cancer, according to a study by the University of Sao Paulo.

The city's environmental agency plans to follow the example of industrialized countries, which were able to reduce ozone in their cities below five percent by cutting the levels of olefins in fuels.