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Inaction over clean air zones and bottled water cannot continue

Car exhaust and fumes
‘Reducing all vehicular traffic in towns and cities is the best way to protect people’s health,’ says Holly Smith. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

The government needs to step up and provide clear messaging and leadership on charging clean air zones (Car industry should pay for UK’s toxic air, inquiry says, 15 March). About 40,000 premature deaths a year are attributable to air pollution; inaction simply cannot continue. The government’s own evidence identifies charging clean air zones as the most effective way to reduce levels of nitrogen dioxide in the shortest time possible. Despite this, they continue to be presented as a last resort, with little support given to the local authorities that are left to decide whether to implement them. The government should mandate charging clean air zones in areas where legal limits of air pollution are being broken.

Reducing all vehicular traffic in towns and cities is the best way to protect people’s health from the harmful effects of air pollution. Electric vehicles still release fine particulate matter, caused by the wear and tear of tyres and brake pads, which gets into our respiratory system and contributes to early death. Investing revenue from clean air zones in safe walking routes, cycling infrastructure and public transport is the best way to make the UK’s air breathable for us all.
Holly Smith
Policy coordinator, Living Streets

• Four parliamentary committees have come together to push for a new Clean Air Act. Geraint Davies MP in the Commons and myself in the Lords are bringing forward draft bills to lay out what the government needs to do. We need clean air to be a human right and with Brexit happening in the next two years, we need to urgently create an independent, environmental enforcement agency. I believe that we need a citizens’ commission to help people take the government and corporations to court if they fail in their responsibilities to public health and the environment. The loss of European commission oversight with Brexit is a threat to existing environmental protections and an opportunity to create something stronger in its place.
Jenny Jones
Green party, House of Lords

• I was very surprised to see your article about the health issues of around 10 nanograms of microplastics in an average bottle of water (Tests find hundreds of tiny plastic particles in brands of bottled water, 16 March). Given the recent nerve agent attacks, it’s worth noting that the lethal dose of polonium – one of the most toxic substances known – is about 50 nanograms. The presence of microplastics in water is alarming from an environmental perspective, but plastic is very close to non-toxic, so there is no way that this level of microplastics constitutes any significant direct threat to health. Most absurdly of all, bottled water in plastic bottles comes with about a billion times more plastic in the bottle itself, than in microplastics, and there are very real health concerns associated with chemicals potentially leaching from the bottles themselves.
Brian Lowry
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Canada

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