Open tires burning, environmental pollution and health impact

Open burning of vehicle tires on street is becoming a part of life in Nepal. Even for small events, aggressive mass start putting fire on tires to show their yes or no support and put pressure on government. The question of environmental pollution and health impact of such activities has been raised several times but no one has changed this behavior.

Open tire fire emissions include carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur oxides (SO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). It also includes hazardous air pollutants such as polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), dioxins, furans, hydrogen chloride, benzene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The tire burning emission also releases heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, nickel, zinc, mercury, chromium, and vanadium. People exposed to such emissions show symptoms of skin, eyes, and mucous membranes irritation, lungs and respiratory problems, central nervous system depression, and cancer. In a long run people may start showing mutagenic effects and higher number of cancer cases. In terms of mutagenic effects, open tire fires emissions are 16 times more dangerous than residential wood burning and 13,000 times than coal-fired emissions.

May be we will start stopping lighting the tires only we experience such effects ourselves but that will be too late to act on. (Information source: http://www.elaw.org/node/2764; Pictures by blogger)