São Paulo's air pollution kills more people than car crashes

Air Pollution in São Paulo

Unsurprsingly for such a large city, air quality is poor in São Paulo. Few, however, would have imagined that more people die of air pollution in the city than from road accidents.

The study by the Instituto Saúde e Sustentabilidade (Health and Sustainability Institute) found that in 2011 4,655 people died from pollution related illneses in São Paulo, more than three times the 1,556 who died in road accidents over the same period. To put that in context, breast cancer killed 1277 people in the same year and AIDs only 874.

Particulate pollution is running at 20 to 25 micrograms per cubic meter in the city, over 200% what is deemed safe by the World Health Organisation. Total deaths directly caused by respiratory diseases across the state of São Paulo form 2006 to 2011 total more than 100,000..

Click on the link for more statistics on São Paulo

Smog City

It’s not fair to say São Paulo has not done anything to improve its air quality.

Back in 1986 the Proconve scheme was introduced which limits drivers use of their vehicles one day a week based on the license plate number of the car in question. This alone is supposed to have led to a reduction of gaseous pollutants by 94 percent, according to the CETESB (Companhia de Tecnologia de Saneamento Ambiental). During the 90s Brazil also eliminated the lead content in gasoline and in 2003 Promoto was introduced which regulates emissions from motorcycles (motorbikes were heavy pollutants because catalytic converters and other pollution control technology were only legal obligations for larger vehicles).

Today there is discussion on how far sulfur content in petrol can be reduced over the next few years but despite all of this the air quality is poor and when the weather is hot (which is most of the time) smog is especially common.

Sometimes pictures speak louder than words so here are some shots of the city I took last month, you can clearly see three horizontal demarcations which are, from the bottom up: city, smog & sky.