Air quality monitors to be rolled out in Sydney CBD
With 3000 deaths per year attributed to air pollution in Australia, the State Government and City of Sydney have struck a deal to immediately install an air quality monitor in the CBD.
Central Sydney
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Air quality in Sydney’s bustling CBD will finally be tested, after the announcement that monitors will be rolled out “immediately” in the city.
Under an agreement by the State Government and City of Sydney, a temporary air quality monitor has gone online at the northwestern corner of Cook and Phillip Park for the next eight weeks, as Public Works constructs a permanent station nearby.
Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean also revealed that the government and council were investigating the appropriate location for a second monitoring site in the CBD.
“On behalf of the NSW Government, I’d like to thank the Lord Mayor and the City of Sydney for working with us to achieve this result,” he said.
The World Health Organisation considers air pollution to be the largest environmental danger to public health, accounting for 4.2 million deaths per year across the globe due to stroke, heart disease, lung cancer and chronic respiratory diseases.
In Australia about 300 deaths are attributed to air pollution each year, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, while a study by Asthma Australia found 1700 people are killed by pollution from motor vehicles.
Mr Kean said the monitoring device would provide “invaluable data” to government planners.
“It will provide a reliable baseline with which to measure the negative health impacts of major road projects so that we can better quantify their true cost to our community,” Mr Kean said.
It comes more than two years Mr Kean’s predecessor Gabrielle Upton promised a long-term roadside monitor would be installed in the CBD “before the end of this year” in June 2017.
The delay was highlighted at August’s City of Sydney council meeting, where Lord Mayor Clover Moore labelled the inaction a “shocking failure of duty of care by a government”.
On Monday Cr Moore welcomed the partnership, saying it would reveal information about the air quality in the city and neighbourhoods where people live, work and travel.
“It also provides the basis to measure the positive impact of new cycleways, urban greening, electric buses, and the transformative light rail project,” she said.
