https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/17/rajshahi-bangladesh-city-air-pollution-won
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Rajshahi: the city that took on air pollution – and won
In Bangladesh, one of the world’s most polluted cities has led the way globally in ridding itself of harmful PM10 particles
A battery-powered auto-rickshaw drives down a street in Rajshahi, Bangladesh. Photograph: Emma Graham-Harrison
Emma Graham-Harrison in Rajshahi and
Vidhi Doshi in Tezpur
Fri 17 Jun ‘16 16.57 BST First published on Fri 17 Jun ‘16 04.00 BST
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Once, Rajshahi’s sweltering summers were made worse by a familiar problem on the Asian subcontinent: windows would have to be shut, not because of the wind or monsoon, but because of the smog.
Dust blown up from dry riverbeds, fields and roads, and choking smog from ranks of brick kilns on the edge of town helped to secure the place a spot in the top tier of the world’s most polluted cities.
Then suddenly Rajshahi, in Bangladesh, hit a turning point so dramatic that it earned a spot in the record books: last year,
according to UN data, the town did more than any other worldwide to rid itself of air particles so harmful to human health.
“We didn’t know about this,” admits Ashraful Haque, the city’s chief engineer, who like some of his fellow residents is rather bemused by the achievement.
Rajshahi does not have a large industrial area, and it is too poor to have streets clogged with cars. Instead, Haque believes it was the campaign to clean up the
brick kilns, as well as efforts to make the city greener, that have turned the tide.
Levels of larger PM10 particles went from 195 micrograms per cubic metre in 2014, to just 63.9 in 2016, a reduction of about two-thirds, and the largest in the world in absolute terms. Smaller PM2.5 particles have been nearly halved to 37 micrograms per cubic metre from 70.
Haque, who was born and educated in the city, remembers as a child having to close windows and doors to shut out a thin film of dirt that would settle across every surface in the house when a wind swept in from outside.
Nowadays it’s a different city, thanks to the campaign that began with a tree-planting drive more than 15 years ago, and now encompasses everything from transport to rubbish collection. Dust still hangs heavy in the air on occasions, but the transformation has been welcomed by local residents in a country where urban authorities more often generate frustration and resentment.
“Things have got better for my classmates with asthma,” said Fatema Tuzzohra, a 13-year-old enjoying a riverside park after school. “I love the city, it is really clean and green.”
The city began tackling transport issues in 2004, importing a fleet of battery-powered rickshaws from China, and banning large lorries from the city centre in daytime. The three-wheelers are the main form of public transport, and their batteries keep the air free of the petrol and diesel fumes that hang over other cities.
Upgrades to the brick kilns, such as changing chimneys and fuel, have reduced the amount of pollution they spew out around the city, Haque says. And he has personally designed and overseen a project to make the city centre greener while reducing the amount of dust kicked up by people and vehicles.
“We have a ‘zero soil’ programme in the city, with lots of planting and green intervention. When it works, there should be no part of the road that will be dirt. It will be all grass, flower or pavement,” says Haque.
He became convinced that the city needed more pavements after trips to study urban planning abroad. At the time the asphalt surfacing of the city roads mostly ended in a dusty verge, sometimes with open drains, dangerous and unappealing for walking along, he said.
“In 2010, after a visit to London, I started creating pavements. I couldn’t believe it, everyone has to walk at least 2km a day [in London], but here people finish lunch and look for a rickshaw. Even in the good neighbourhoods, there are no pavements.”
Apart from encouraging a healthier lifestyle, they are vital for controlling dust in the air, he says. “If you have them, no soil will fly during the summer seasons.” So far they have built about 9 miles (15km) of pavements, but soon hope to expand to 30, he said.
The road transformation will go beyond pedestrians this month, when city workers start building the city’s – and the country’s – very first cycle lane.
Take-up is likely to be slow in a city already sweltering in the summer heat, and where the only people on bicycles are those too poor to afford other transport, Haque admits. But inspired by trips abroad, he hopes to sow the first seeds of change.
“I went to the river Thames and saw people riding bikes, I got the idea from Japan and China as well. We don’t have enough land for a separate lane in many places, but where we can we will separate with a border, making a pavement and a cycle lane beside it.”
People are proud of their town, and have started looking after it more closely after the transformation, says restaurateur SM Shihab Uddin, who spent nearly a decade working in Cyprus before returning to open his own chain of eating spots for the growing middle class.
“It has changed so much,” he said. “I came back in 2009, and I was worried that I would find it hard to live here after so much time abroad. But it was already transformed.”
Saad Hammadi contributed to this report.
The Rajshahi miracle
Courier Report
Thursday, June 23rd, 2016
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Earlier this week it was revealed that Rajshahi, the eponymous capital of Bangladesh’s northern-most division, has recently outperformed every other city in the world when it comes to reducing air pollution, as measured by the World Health Organization (henceforth WHO).
The WHO report says the amount of floating PM10 (sized 10 micrometers) particles in the Rajshahi air was 195 micrograms per cubic meter in 2014. But remarkably it has managed since then to reduce the harmful content by nearly two-thirds since then, and in 2016 and now those same particles measure just 63.9 micrograms per cubic meter.
The Rajshahi City Corporation gave most of the credit for this drastic reduction to a project to reduce the air pollution in the city named ‘Zero Soil’. This project helps to reduce floating air particles harmful to human health, as the key to fighting pollution.
Chief Engineer of Rajshahi City Corporation Ashraful Haque told Dhaka Courier, “We have a project named Zero Soil. The target of the project was to have no free or open dust-producing land in this city. The pavement on the side of the road is covered with tiles. Where there is no scope to use tiles here we planted grass.”
The project is not yet complete even, we learned, yet its aims are almost fulfilled. “The Padma River embankment is covered with massive tree plantation, hence leaving no scope to dust wind,” Ashraful Haque said. He hopes the remaining work of the project ends smoothly, then the city can become even cleaner.
Now most city-dwellers in the afternoon go to the Lalon Shah Park, part of a bustling riverside scene that is unthinkable in Dhaka, to take in some fresh air. Green trees line the road side. All of this makes a city of fresh air.
Urban and Regional Planning experts said upgrading the brick kilns, massive tree-planting, tiled pavements, and perhaps most importantly, using battery-run auto rickshaws instead of petrol and diesel-run public transport, have all played vital roles for reducing pollution.
The director of the Institute of Biological Sciences of Rajshahi University Professor M Manjun Hossain told Courier that the smallest air particles, less then 10 micrometers, spread in the air from particular sources or from complex chemical reaction. Those particles directly reach our lungs through the bronchi. This makes them particularly harmful for human health, Manjur Hossain added.
He also said these smaller yet more pernicious particles spread in the air mostly from the petrol- and diesel-run vehicles. Nowadays the city dwellers use battery-run auto rickshaws and fossil fuel-run vehicles are almost banned in this city, in terms of public transport.
The floating smaller PM2.5 particles in the air of Rajshahi was measured at 70 micrograms (as size of 2.5 micrometers) per cubic meter in 2014. Here again we find remarkable progress by the city, as it has nearly halved the count in 2016, to 37micrograms per cubic meter.
Md Mizanur Rahman, associate professor of Geography and Environmental Science department of Rajshahi University said Rajshahi obtained this outstanding result for various reasons. Once upon a time, huge amounts of dust came from the Char and the city protection embankment of Padma River. Now the embankment area has been converted into a riverside park, with mass tree-planting. This has put an end to the dust-storms that used to originate in the area in the past. As part of the park project, a five kilometre pavement covered with tiles has also been built. Now the park acts as a fresh air centre.
Advocate Rumel Ahmed, a resident of Hetem Kha area of the city agrees that the tree-plantation drive worked wonders for the city. “There is no dusty wind in this city anymore. Now we can take in fresh air by simply breathing. We usually go to the riverside and enjoy our leisure time there with
http://www.dhakacourier.com.bd/the-rajshahi-miracle/
