Every moment we breathe. How much do we know about the air? Do we know how polluted the air we breathe in?

Many countries around the world take responsibility to protect environment. Sweden is one of the leading nations that make distinctive efforts to improve air quality. Today, I would like to introduce this impressive Swedish city I found from the environmental awareness article, Växjö, which definitely caught my attention.

Växjö , a vibrant green city in southern Sweden, well demonstrates Sweden's extraordinary achievements of Air quality improvement. Since early 1970s, people in Växjö tried very hard to preserve environment around the city. They purified lakes that were severely polluted due to nearby industries and agriculture. Since 1993, people in Växjö notably reduced CO2 level. By 2006, they have reduced CO2 level up to 30%. By 2025, Växjö plans to reduce 70% of CO2 release level. Their significant reduction of CO2 was mainly from the heating/electric power stations. Instead of fuels, city of Växjö decided to use leftovers of woods from their wood industry. The leftovers were used to the leftover sediment to create electricity, then to create energy for the heaters. Even the dregs were used as natural fertilizers for the trees at nearby woods. In addition, city of Växjö started to change all the street lamps to power-saving bulbs in 1994. By doing so, it is estimated that about 6,000,000 kilograms (6,000tons) of CO2 discharge is reduced. Växjö also worked on Traffic industries. For instance, the city used biogas from sewage disposal plant for the public transportation system. Taxies of Växjö reduced 20% of their driving distance using eco-friendly cars such as biogas, hybrid, or ethanol vehicle. Although a small city, Växjö definitely impress various people around the world. As a result, Växjö received Sustainable Energy Europe Award.

Another city that does great job reducing CO2 is Stockholm. Stockholm is a capital city of Sweden that the meeting to discuss establishment of UNEP was held. In 1996, Stockholm adopted and successfully ran protect ZEUS(Zero and low Emission vehicles in Urban City), The city extended bio fuels and provided benefits to divers who used eco-friendly cars such as hybrid cars or smaller cars that releases CO2 less than 120 g per kilometer. Stockholm, a green city that has highest percentage of eco-friendly cars, reduces nearly 200,000,000 kilograms (20,000tons) of CO2.

Göteborg, a Swedish port city, is also famous as a green city. Usually the ships get their energy from engines that requires high consuming rate of energy. The city of Göteborg, aware of this problem that may lead to severe environmental pollution, used the wind energy to provide energy for their ships. Their brilliant technology to do so allowed 97% reduction of CO2 release level, and the city was awarded Clean Marine Award.

The cities of Sweden were able to effectively improve its air quality with its strong environmental organization. Sweden Environmental Protection Agency, the center of Sweden's environmental protection, announced Clean Air Policy. This policy states that the air must be clean enough not to represent a risk to human health or to animals, plants or cultural assets. In addition, Sweden passed Swedish environmental protection act of 1969 to promote individual source control. These regulations are expected to reduce harmful features up to 50% and increase the production of agriculture.