Healthier air on the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day

“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” – Robert Swan, Author

The European Space Agency satellite recently spotted the dramatic impact of the COVID-19 lockdown measures on the level of NO₂ in large urban areas.

There is no doubt that once the lockdown measures are lifted, and people start to resume their daily tasks, the level of NO₂ will rise and negatively impact the quality of the air we breathe. Now is the time to change the way we do things to mitigate the impact we make on the quality of air we breathe.

The current crisis is showing at full scale that a dramatic reduction of NO₂ is possible if the emissions are reduced at source; due to less polluting vehicles on road. This result could be sustained after the lockdown with a larger ratio of clean vehicles on the road, notably the ones equipped with the latest generation of emission control catalysts.

In addition, the treatment of pollutants such as NO₂ is possible in situ. The European-funded LIFE-Photoscaling project is looking to demonstrate air pollution reduction through the use of photocatalytic construction materials like pavement coatings.

Today, technologies such as CristalACTiV™ exist and can be deployed for both emission control and in situ to sustain lower levels of pollutants in our urban areas.

Although COVID-19 has many negative impacts, it is forcing us to start looking at things differently and make changes accordingly. It is up to us.