Small towns bottom of air quality league

Small towns have some of the poorest air quality in the country, a study revealed today.

The pollution survey warned households burning non-smokeless fuels were compounding problems caused by increased traffic.

The Environmental Protection Agency urged people to think about the effects of fuels.

Dr Ciaran O’Donnell, EPA programme manager said: “What our results for 2006 show is that attaining good air quality depends on reducing local emissions.

“Traffic and non-smokeless fuel are the two main causes of poor air quality in Ireland. Increasingly, poor air quality is associated with smaller towns.”

The EPA report, Air Quality in Ireland 2006 – Key Indicators of Ambient Air Quality, found small towns were worst affected by households burning coal, peat and wood.

But the survey found air quality in Ireland was good throughout the country and complied with all European standards for all pollutants.

Results were gathered from 24 stations nationwide, producing hourly or daily data as required by the EU directives on air quality.

The main pollutants recorded in 2006 were nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter.

Nitrogen dioxide levels were highest in urban areas, mainly due to traffic density while particulate were high in cities, again mainly due to traffic density.

But the highest level of particulates were in smaller towns mainly due to the use of non-smokeless fuel.

The EPA also warned about the levels of harmful ground-level ozone which were higher than normal in 2006.

Ozone is created when certain pollutants react with sunlight in hot weather.

An episode of particularly high ozone in July was caused by a combination of hot, sunny weather and polluted air masses from mainland Europe.