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POLLUTION

Dirty air on Paris Metro poses health risk to staff

The air in Paris Metro stations is so dirty that staff who work on the underground network are actually at risk of suffering health problems, a new report has concluded.

Published: 10 September 2015 14:46 CEST
Dirty air on Paris Metro poses health risk to staff
THe air on the Paris Metro poses health risk to staff. Photo: AFP

If you’ve ever had to hold your breath on the Paris Metro, then spare a thought for the people who have to spend much of their day working on the network.

A recent report on the air in the Paris Metro system said it was four times worse than the notoriously smoggy Péripherique ring road and perhaps unsurprisingly the latest study claims it poses a health risk to staff.

Metro employees and those working on underground train stations are risking their health while at work, the French health watchdog ANSES concluded.

“There exists respiratory and cardiovascular health risks associated with chronic exposure to fine particles in the air in underground rail enclosures,” the report said.

The source of the dirty air is fine particles of metal than come from the rolling stock and their toxicity is “poorly documented”, the report writes.

Fumes from diesel engines add to the pollution.

As a result of the dangers the health agency has called for “preventative measures” to reduce the exposure of employees to the fine particles.

Those workers most at risk are Metro and train drivers, those who work on safety and maintenance or assistance to passengers, and those working in shops in the underground stations.

Earlier this year pollution experts for French channel BFM TV said They found that the concentration of particulates with a diameter of less than 10 microns — so-called PM10 — was at an average of 75 microgrammes per cubic metre (mcg/m3) inside the Metro. The figure soared above 200 during peak hours.
 
The safe limit for PM10 is set at 80 microgrammes per cubic metre (mcg/m3), with Paris's alert level fixed at 50 mcg/m3.
 
Out at the ringroad peripherique, meanwhile, the air was considerably cleaner despite the traffic – recorded to be 20mcg/m3.

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POLLUTION

Greenpeace sounds alarm over Spain’s ‘poisonous mega farms’

The “uncontrolled” growth of industrial farming of livestock and poultry in Spain is causing water pollution from nitrates to soar, Greenpeace warned in a new report on Thursday.

Published: 15 October 2021 09:02 CEST
Greenpeace sounds alarm over Spain's 'poisonous mega farms'
Pollution from hundreds of intensive pig farms played a major role in the collapse of Murcia Mar Menor saltwater lagoon. Photo: JOSEP LAGO / AFP

The number of farm animals raised in Spain has jumped by more than a third since 2015 to around 560 million in 2020, it said in the report entitled “Mega farms, poison for rural Spain”.

This “excessive and uncontrolled expansion of industrial animal farming” has had a “serious impact on water pollution from nitrates”, it said.

Three-quarters of Spain’s water tables have seen pollution from nitrates increase between 2016 and 2019, the report said citing Spanish government figures.

Nearly 29 percent of the country’s water tables had more than the amount of nitrate considered safe for drinking, according to a survey carried out by Greenpeace across Spain between April and September.

The environmental group said the government was not doing enough.

It pointed out that the amount of land deemed an “area vulnerable to nitrates” has risen to 12 million hectares in 2021, or 24 percent of Spain’s land mass, from around eight million hectares a decade ago, yet industrial farming has continued to grow.

“It is paradoxical to declare more and more areas vulnerable to nitrates”, but at the same time allow a “disproportionate rise” in the number of livestock on farms, Greenpeace said.

Pollution from hundreds of intensive pig farms played a major role in the collapse of one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons, the Mar Menor in Spain’s southeast, according to a media investigation published earlier this week.

Scientists blamed decades of nitrate-laden runoffs for triggering vast blooms of algae that had depleted the water of the lagoon of oxygen, leaving fish suffocating underwater.

Two environmental groups submitted a formal complaint in early October to the European Union over Spain’s failure to protect the lagoon.

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