SWITCH OFF TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR AIR
A new Colchester-wide campaign has launched to encourage drivers to switch off their car engines while they wait at traffic lights, level crossings or outside schools, to improve their own health and help reduce air pollution in the town.
The campaign, CAReless Pollution, comes as research (1) shows 87% of local people are concerned about air quality in Colchester and 41% think the town is highly polluted.
CAReless POLLUTION, is urging drivers to adopt better driving habits and switch off their engines while waiting, in order to reduce the risks associated with breathing in polluted air. Research carried out by the University of Surrey has found that pollution inside a stationary car with the engine running is seven times higher than the air pollution outside the car (2).
Currently only 15% of drivers regularly switch off their engine when their car is not moving and 20% override their car’s automatic switch off technology (1). Switching off your car engine reduces emissions which brings an important health benefit to everyone inside the car and could save you money on fuel.
Leaving the engine running while sitting at the traffic lights or queuing in traffic is often an unconscious, careless action taken without any thought or attention to the potential harm it may cause to your own health or to the health of loved ones. The campaign aims to explain the link between exhaust fumes and poor health, to demonstrate that small actions like switching off your engine can make a difference to your own health and those around you. Air pollution causes the development of heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease and lung cancer, all of which lead to reduced life expectancy.
Funded by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, CAReless Pollution will run until May 2021 and includes events in and around Colchester working closely with local schools and businesses to change people’s car driving behaviour.
For more information or to get involved in the campaign please visit: www.colchester.gov.uk/cleanair.
References:
(1) Clean Air Survey, Colchester Borough Council, October 2019 – January 2020
(2) Concentration dynamics of coarse and fine particulate matter at and around signalised traffic intersections, Kumar P. & Goel A.,
University of Surrey, 2016
Clean Air Day 2019 was a big success
June might feel like a long time ago but we’re so pleased to share the successes of Clean Air Day 2019. Read the full report on the Clean Air Day Website.
250 official supporter organisations and 3,700 participating organisations took part in Clean Air Day last year, #CleanAirDay trended on social media providing 381 million opportunities for people to view and learn about air pollution. 3,800 Clean Air Day toolkits were downloaded. Over 2,000 news and broadcast items carried Clean Air Day stories, and most importantly 400,000 people experienced cleaner air at over 600 events ranging from school street closures and cycle commuting to traffic-free city centres and street parties.
Did your organisation take part? Make sure you share your story with Clean Air Day.
Download the full Clean Air Day 2019 report, and we can’t wait to get planning for Clean Air Day 2020 on 18th June…
Clean air for Colchester – be part of the change
Colchester City Council have been awarded funding from DEFRA for a two year behaviour change project to tackle levels of pollution in the city. Through the project they will be working in partnership with residents, schools, businesses and community groups to raise awareness of air quality issues and encourage people to take action.
We know for example that small easy changes to driving habits, such as switching the engine off whilst stationary, can cut pollution by up to 30% – think how much cleaner the air will be with 30% less pollution!
They want to make the air we breathe cleaner – but they can’t do it alone. Please fill in our survey and share it far and wide to help us get a better understanding of what is currently known about pollution and the effect it has on our health and well-being. The survey takes no longer than 8 minutes to complete: Clean Air Survey
They have also joined up with a local people to produce this 2 minute film all about the air in Colchester – they would love to know what you think – join the discussion #cleanaircol
For further information about the project please visit www.colchester.gov.uk/cleanair. If you have any questions or you would like the Clean Air Team to come and run an interactive session with your employees about the project please get in touch cleanair@colchester.gov.uk
20th June – Clean Air Day 2019
We can all have a cleaner air day on 20th June. Air pollution affects you from your first breath to your last, as the damage to our health can start when we’re a baby and carry on through into old age. But if we work together we could have a cleaner air day on:
Clean Air Day
20th June 2019
Did you know that if you walk on the side streets, rather than busy roads, you could experience 20% less air pollution? Or that if you walk, rather than drive, you could cut your exposure to air pollution in half (as car drivers can be exposed to twice as much air pollution as pedestrians and nine times more than a cyclist)?
Clean Air Day on 20th June is a chance to find out more about air pollution, learn how to avoid it, and discover the practical things that people can do to cut local pollution.
Want to run a Clean Air Day event this year? Find resources here, and find out more about Clean Air day online here.
21 June 2018 – Clean Air Day
Clean Air day is coming up on Thursday 21 June. This year CTPC members are planning to focus on #NoIdling – encouraging drivers to switch off their engines when stationary for more than one minute. Examples include when parked, waiting, loading/unloading and where there are long delays such as at Eastgates and at complex traffic light junctions such as both ends of Brook St and in Magdelen St (both in air quality management areas)
Colchester has four declared air quality management areas where Nitrogen Dioxide levels exceed the EU legal limit. The main source of the air pollution is from motor vehicles. Air pollution is believed to have contributed to over 140 early deaths in Colchester last year alone.
Find out more about air quality in Colchester
Transport is a massive source of air pollution. Toxic gases (such as nitrogen dioxide) and particulate matter emitted by vehicle engines can cause a whole range of health problems, ranging from coughing and itchy eyes to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and even premature death. Children are particularly at risk with air pollution linked to low birth weight and poor lung development. The health impacts of air pollution cost the NHS around £54 billion a year.
You are not safer inside the car either. If you are sitting in stationary traffic, the air pollution in your car from the exhaust of the car in front is worse than outside your car.
Find out more about the health impacts of poor air quality
Leaving engines running while stationary is an unnecessary source of air pollution. Switching off when stationary is a simple action everyone can take that can make a big difference.
A recent study showed in areas of high air pollution due to traffic congestion, switching off engines can reduce peak concentrations in air pollution by as much as 20-30%.
CTPC members will be looking at No Idling promotions on their own sites and with their own staff and asking staff to help spread the word.
Clean Air Day offers really useful free resources to provide training, guidance and downloadable posters and flyers to support ‘No Idling’ campaigns.
If you are interested in getting involved in helping spread the message about air pollution, it’s impact and how to reduce air pollution, get in touch; or if you are a school, workplace or healthcare provider, Clean Air Day has developed free tailored downloadable action packs.
Find out more about free resources to take part in Clean Air Day 2018
If you want to know more about how you can reduce your own contribution to air pollution, have a look at the Clean Air Day website or it you want to get involved in helping make Colchester’s air safer to breathe get in touch with the local community group Clean Air Colchester
15 June – National Clean Air Day
The first ever National Clean Air Day falls on Wednesday 15th June.
Air quality has been in the media a lot recently as the evidence of the health impacts of air pollution, particularly from motorised vehicles is now very clear, with old people, unborn babies, children and those suffering from lung and heart problems the most vulnerable.
In Colchester alone 143 early deaths every year are attributable to air pollution.
As a town with an air quality problem in specific areas including the town centre (see more about Colchester’s air quality problem and the Air Quality Management Areas), we are very keen to support this initiative and the Clean Air Day organisers have provided heaps of free resources to help us.
Everyone who drives has a responsibility to contribute to reducing air pollution and there are small actions everyone can take that can contribute to making a big difference.
Please use the day to raise awareness of the causes and health impacts of air pollution and ask your colleagues to pledge to make a change to their travel behaviour on the 15th June.
With just one hour of your time, you could:
- Forward the social media message and information to your communications team and ask them to promote the day internally and externally including signing up to the Thunderclap
National Clean Air Day Social media resources
- Put the posters below up around your workplace
Fact2 – Pollution damages our hearts
Fact3 – How to avoid worst air pollution
Poster – Leave the car at home
- Share these leaflets with your colleagues
- Encourage your colleagues to pledge online to make a change on the 15th June at www.cleanairday.org.uk/pledge
There are 4 pledges to choose from
Leave my car at home
Turn off my engine whenever I can
Walk my children to school
Share tips on how to cut pollution with others.
- Promote AirTEXT a free alert service highlighting high pollution level days in Colchester so people with heart and lung conditions can take action if needed. AirTEXT alert service
If you can do a bit more?
There are lots of other ideas and resources available to help you draft a message from your chief executive or managing director, to hold an event, or talk to people about turning off their engines. Look at the resources below for further information.
There are other resource packs for schools and healthcare providers packed with ideas, posters, templates and key messages to share.
Go to the Clean Air Day website for more information.
Free parking for car sharers at Colchester Station
Do you travel by train for business meetings?
Why not travel with colleagues and make the most of the work time you have on the train that you would lose if you travelled by car?
Plus if you car share to the station you can ENJOY UP TO 8 HOURS FREE PARKING at Colchester Station.
The LoveurcarColchester car share bays are located on the south side of the station and anybody car sharing to the station for business or personal use can use them free of charge. You need a Loveurcar car share permit which you can also get for free by applying online.
The Loveurcar car share permit can also be used in a number of car parks in town including St Mary’s, Vineyard Street, Britannia and St Johns where the car share bays are located in preferential locations. (Please note normal car park charges still apply in the town centre car parks)
Car sharers can save money on fuel and car park charges by taking it in turns to give lifts or by reimbursing their car share drivers with a contribution towards fuel and parking costs.
There are added community benefits if more people car share. Car sharing contributes to reducing the number of cars on the roads, improvements in air quality through fewer cars, with the knock on effect of reducing traffic congestion.
If you workplace doesn’t already have a car share matching scheme, then suggest they set one up. You may be surprised to find how many colleagues live close to each other and could potentially car share some of the days of the week. You can find out more about car sharing including local online car share matching schemes below.
Find out more about car sharing here.
Apply for a FREE LUCC permit here
AirTEXT – FREE local pollution alert service
Do you or someone you know have a heart or lung condition?
Sign up to a FREE Colchester air pollution alert service. On days of elevated air pollution receive an alert via your landline or mobile or download the airTEXT app on your smart phone to view air pollution, UV, pollen and temperatures for TODAY and TOMORROW.
To sign up:
- Download the airTEXT app to your smart phone
- Text AIRTEXT to 78070*
- Visit the website www.airtext.info
*You will be charged at your standard text rate.
Mitigating Climate Change and Local Opportunities for Health Improvement
Colchester Medics for Safer Roads have organised the above seminar which will take place on the 25 February from 7:30 till 9:30pm at the Postgraduate Centre at Colchester Hospital. If you would like to attend please email elaine.chapman@nhs.net
Dr Paul Bryne extends his invitation to CTPC members and says;
‘We would like to invite you to this special event exploring the relevance of climate change and the opportunities and obligations this offers to public health.
We are delighted to announce two excellent speakers:
Dr Hugh Montgomery is Professor of Intensive Care and director of the UCL Institute for Human Health and Performance, both University College London. Hugh has been pivotal in the publication of the recent international joint UCL – Lancet commissions on Climate Change (http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/climate-change) which he has been co-chairing. These emphasise that tackling climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century. By way of an appetiser, you can watch a speech by Prof Montgomery at a health conference in Durban in 2015 via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbS8pe-DVSk
Dr Mike Gogarty Director for Public Health at Essex County Council.
Mike will address the impact of Public Health on issues around Climate Change in our locality of Essex.
We have organised this seminar in response to the strong scientific consensus on the danger posed by man-made climate change http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ and our interest in exploring opportunities to mitigate an unprecedented threat, while improving public health. Realising that progressing the issue locally will need to be collaborative, we will be inviting health care clinicians, Public Health staff , staff from Essex County Council and local politicians.
Programme:
7.00 – 7.30 Light buffet with refreshments
7.30 – 7.40 Short Introduction by chair Dr Elmer van der Hoek, GP Tutor
7.40 – 8.30 Prof Hugh Montgomery: Climate Change and Health
8.30 – 9.00 Dr Mike Gogarty: Local impact of Public Health on issues relating to Climate Change
(Followed by Debate, questions and comments from the floor)
9.30 Conclusion by the chair and promotion for the follow-up symposium
We intend to follow this event with a symposium on a Saturday towards the end of April, further exploring how we can prepare for a low carbon future and improvements in Public Health with focus on local opportunities such as promoting alternative travel arrangements to the car, especially by use of the bicycle.
We very much hope you will be able to join us and contribute to this important debate.’
Road Safety Week
This week is Road Safety Week and ‘Drive Less, Live More’ is the theme. Here are some facts that charity Brake, organisers of Road Safety Week are sharing to support Drive Less, Live More…
- Two thirds (63%) of trips are made by car, including four in 10 (40%) trips of less than two miles.
- Average walking trips per person have decreased by 27% since 1995.
- A quarter of adults in England are obese and the cost to the NHS of people being overweight is estimated at £4.2 billion a year.
- Incorporating activity like walking and cycling into everyday life is effective for losing weight.
- In 2013 there were 1,770 people killed and 22,377 people seriously injured on UK roads. The vast majority of casualties are attributable to driver error.
- Nearly half of households in England could be struggling with the costs of car ownership.
- On average a family can save £642 a year by swapping a car-based school run for walking or cycling.
- 22% of UK greenhouse gas emissions come from road transport.
- Air pollution is estimated to cause 24,000 deaths a year in the UK, half attributable to road transport.
- The number of cars is set to increase by 43% by 2035 and traffic delays by 50%
You can take part and promote Road Safety Week by:
- Tweeting about Road Safety Week, using #RoadSafetyWeek and #drivelesslivemore.
- Asking your MP to sign Early Day Motion 683 supporting the Week.
- Using the posters, banners, guides and factsheet in their action pack to publicise your activities.
- Share their interactive resource on driving less – www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk/drivelessinteractive.
- Go to www.brake.org.uk/pledge to make Brake’s Pledge and find out how to support Brake.
- Fundraise or donate to support Brake’s campaigns for safer streets and support work for bereaved and injured road crash victims.
Find out more from www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk