Air Pollution

Indonesia?s air pollution has been a problem for a long time. With the rapid increase of population, which causes the increase in individual transportations, and the increase in industries, something needs to be done. 

Impact of air pollution towards its surroundings

Air pollution is not something that we can easily avoid. Masks aren?t always very helpful in avoiding  air pollution from going into your body. Here in Indonesia, people are allowed to smoke cigarettes where ever they want and burn rubbish when ever they want. This has a terrible impact towards our environment. 

The burning of rubbish releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air. A greenhouse gas acts as, well, a greenhouse. It covers up the earth with natural greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour and nitrous oxide to maintain the Earth?s temperature. That was then, when Earth wasn?t so polluted. Now, humans have come up with other greenhouse gases such as Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs — found in paint), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs —found in refrigerators and air conditioners), etc. These man-made greenhouse gases traps outgoing infrared energy from the Earth, causing Earth to heat up. Resulting in Climate Change and Global Warming. 

However, our sources of air pollution aren?t only from the burning of rubbish and the smoking of cigarettes. It is also from transportations and industries. Indonesia is a developing country with over 200 million inhabitants. The increase of population in a country like Indonesia means there is an increase in individual transportations. In fact, it?s a rather rapid increase. 

Lead is a destructive element that can be easily released into the air. A huge source of Lead emissions comes from vehicles in which Indonesia has tons of. Lead may bring health issues towards us such as brain damage, especially to babies. Another source of lead emissions is Industries. Waste incinerators and Lead-acid battery manufacturers and recyclers are some of the examples of a primary source of lead in air while cement and glass manufacturers are some of the examples of other sources of lead emissions. 

 GWP= Global warming potential

 

Greenhouse Gas	100-Year GWP	Lifetime (Years)
Carbon dioxide (CO2)	1	Hundreds
Methane (CH4)	25	12
Nitrous Oxide (N2O)	298	114
Hydrofluorocarbon-23 (CHF3)	14800	264
Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)	22800	3200
PFC-14 (CF4)	7390	50000

table above is taken from   http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2008/02/26/ghg_lifetimes/

As you can see from the table above, these greenhouse gases doesn?t only stay in the atmosphere for a couple of months or days or hours. They stay for YEARS. Some reaching up to FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS. That goes on from generations to generations. The effect of greenhouse gases towards us may not even happen now but it would to our future generations. They?ll be the one affected by our actions. 

Air pollution in Indonesia causes 16 000 premature deaths a year. It has been said that Respiratory diseases has become the primary killer in Indonesia (by the year 2003). Reducing air pollution would save a lot of lives.

Reducing the amount of air pollution in our atmosphere

Don?t expect those greenhouse gases to disappear right away. While waiting, we should start reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emitted. In my country, we do activities such as car free day, where people aren?t allowed to use cars. This is a good idea because the greenhouse gas coming from the cars are one of the sources of air pollution. Especially in Indonesia. According to the given data from Jakarta Police traffic directorate, the number of vehicles registered (in Jakarta) increases by 10 percent each year. There is a total of 16 million vehicles in 2013 and this is only in Jakarta! By not using cars for only just one day, it would make a huge difference. 

In Jakarta, they have a lane called 3-in-1 so in one car, there has to be at least three people or else, your car cannot pass through. This slightly decreases the amount of vehicles used in that area, causing the slight decrease in air pollution.

In Bali, we have annual tree planting where we go and plant trees together. Trees takes in Carbon Dioxide, one of the GHGs (Greenhouse gases) that affects the increase in air pollution. By planting more trees, especially in the urban area where there are lots of vehicles, there will be a decrease in air pollution.

At school, we are being fed with knowledge about air pollution in Environmental Management class and in Chemistry class too. This helps us to be more aware of the negative impact that GHGs has towards our Mother Nature. 

There is a foundation in Bali called PPLH where they would teach us about conserving the ozone layer and also other things that has to do with the environment such as recycling paper, etc. They also help us become more aware of the negative impacts that GHGs has towards Mother Nature. 

Spreading awareness on air pollution is really important because air pollution and ozone depletion takes a long time till it can be fixed. We need everyone's help in spreading the awareness of air pollution. Start helping out by cutting the amount of air conditioning you use per day and not forgetting to close the refrigerator door when not in use. You should also cut down the amount of CFC containing products to the minimum. Just by doing little things like that, we could make a difference.