{"id":1564,"date":"2017-09-14T10:47:17","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T10:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/?p=1564"},"modified":"2021-12-01T12:36:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T12:36:49","slug":"its-deadly-and-its-blowing-in-the-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/story\/1564\/its-deadly-and-its-blowing-in-the-wind\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Deadly, and It’s Blowing In the Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

It takes more than just having breakfast to keep you healthy. If you didn’t live in a countryside far away from the industries, then know this: the\u00a0air you\u2019re breathing is toxic air.<\/a><\/p>\n

For a city girl like me, It\u2019s usual business to be stuck in a nearly hour long start-stop traffic behind smoke-belching automobiles during my auto ride to and back from work. As I patiently count along with the signal timer (123, 122, 120..), the choking diesel aroma drifts quietly into my lungs and\u00a0I think to myself: This will pass <\/strong>– when the traffic jam will be out of my sight, the pollution will be out of my lungs.<\/p>\n

\"traffic<\/p>\n

But no, on my way, I make a turn onto a highway and see myself riding straight into another light brown haze. No surprise, I pass through here everyday. Heaps of sand,\u00a0 cement, construction debris and dug up holes make themselves known. I guess sometimes engineers forget they dug holes and some other times they forget why they dug them. So, even as I maneuver through this scene every day,\u00a0I think: this too will pass.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"commutes<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s only a few more turns until I reach my destination. The biggest hurdle is yet to be crossed. A historical monument (open garbage dumping site for the last 10 years). For now, it\u2019s more than just a garbage dump site. It\u2019s burning and spewing dark smoke for meters. Although for a brief moment I feel choking and sickness in my stomach, I move through the thick black fumes, and\u00a0think: gosh! when will this pass?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Garbage<\/p>\n

I cry a sigh of relief as I almost reach work. Only a few more minutes until I reach the the heights of the tall building and I suddenly remember I’m almost running late for a meeting.<\/p>\n

As I walk straight into the meeting room that has its windows opened – the winds of polluted air I just thought I passed, blows right in. And I can smell it in the air.<\/p>\n

A deadly cocktail of polluted air sweeps in and\u00a0I think: this will not pass!<\/strong>\u00a0There is no fleeing away from this.<\/p>\n

As I sat in the meeting gaping at the open windows in the room, I knew that this time the concoction I was breathing belonged to the wild agricultural waste burning on one side and another one of the largest and most lethal sources of SO2 and NO2 invisible to the sight of most urban residents- coal based Thermal Power Plants that hide behind the borders of the city.<\/p>\n

\"smoke<\/p>\n

I realised then that the air I breathe is\u00a0beyond what meets the eye<\/a>. Beyond just vehicular pollution.\u00a0 The results of intense urbanization, density of cars, and the practice of burning waste contribute to the yellow haze over our cities. But what we see is only one side of the story of air pollution. Some criminals lie\u00a0out of sight<\/a>\u00a0of many urban Indians.<\/p>\n

Know what you breathe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Grace Saji works as a Content Developer in Greenpeace India<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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It takes more than just having breakfast to keep you healthy. If you didn’t live in a countryside far away from the industries, then know this: The\u00a0air you\u2019re breathing is toxic air.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[28,29],"p4-page-type":[16],"class_list":["post-1564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-living","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-health","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1564"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12311,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564\/revisions\/12311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1564"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/india\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=1564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}