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With the “rabbit campaign”, the Ministry of Health wants to increase the number of children born in Poland, the Ministry of Family rewards many children by 500+, while the sluggishness of the Ministry of Energy makes our children poisoned. Experts emphasize that the youngest will feel the effects of smog for the rest of their lives.
None of the Polish kindergartens is located in a place where the air purity meets the WHO standards, while over 60 percent. are located where the quality exceeds the underestimated Polish parameters, according to the report of the Foundation # 13 and Greenpeace.
The Polish government is poisoning Polish children
The effects of smog, i.e. low birth weight causing lifelong morbidity, asthma, allergy, pneumonia and bronchitis, worse intellectual development, diabetes, obesity, higher risk of heart attack, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease in adulthood are all funded by the Polish government for our children. The main cause of air pollution in Poland is coal. Due to the lack of its quality standards in Poland, it is legally possible to sell sulfurized fuel, moist fuel with high ash content, and even coal waste, which can only be disposed of. As part of the Clean Air program, the government announced the removal of the worst quality fuel from the market by the end of March 2017. The Ministry of Energy in January this year. promised to introduce solutions to improve air quality. Unfortunately, despite the promises, the act on the fuel quality monitoring and scrutinizing system has not been amended and the coal quality regulation has not been prepared.
– Minister of Energy Krzysztof Tchórzewski is already 250 days late with the introduction of the coal quality standards promised by the government – recalls Marek Józefiak, coordinator of the Climate and Energy campaign in Greenpeace. The changes were to enable fuel quality control, limit the inflow of unsorted coal to Poland and oblige importers to sort it. According to the data available to the Ministry of Energy, by November 2016, a total of 7,2 million tons of coal was imported to Poland. Imports from Our Country accounted for the most, as much as 4,61 million tonnes. Amendments to the act are to oblige the Trade Inspection and the Customs Service to control coal in warehouses and at border crossings with wagons and cars.
– The worst quality coal should not be sold at all. It’s a shame we still have to talk about it. We urge Minister Tchórzewski to adopt coal quality standards without delay, based on reliable analyzes and not on the profit calculation of the coal lobby – says M. Józefiak from Greenpeace.
Great burden on small lungs
Pregnant women who breathe polluted air give birth to children who are natally underweight. And this – as specialists emphasize – will affect the whole life of their children.
– Low birth weight determines morbidity until the end of life – says pulmonologist Dr. Tadeusz Zielonka from the Medical University of Warsaw. And she adds that the ombudsman for children’s rights postulates compulsory treatment of pregnant alcohol abusers, but remains silent when future mothers and their offspring poison the air. Dr. Zielonka talks about the shocking results of research carried out in Krakow. It turns out that 54 percent. schoolchildren have asthma or allergies there. The average for the entire country is less than 10 percent. – These diseases are the result of polluted air. Patients will struggle with them for the rest of their lives, which will certainly worsen its quality and force them to take many medications for a long time – he says. He adds that the effects of smog in the form of a runny nose or cough are recognized as infections and treated unsuccessfully with antibiotics.
– Parents come to me with sick kids who have already taken four different antibiotics and have not passed their coughs. Unfortunately, many doctors do not know what ailments smog can cause in young patients – he says. – Children inhale more air pollutants per body weight than adults. They also have an underdeveloped immune system and their lungs are just developing. This, combined with the high physical activity of toddlers, makes the children’s susceptibility to air pollution extremely high – she emphasizes. He adds that we already know about the role of air pollution in increasing the risk of diabetes and obesity. More and more often it is said about its influence on the nervous system. There are studies showing that children who breathe this air have lower intelligence rates and may be more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in the future. Given that smog increases the number of heart attacks, strokes and pulmonary embolisms, it can cause these conditions to appear faster in young children when they grow up.
Smoky preschoolers
“Polish kindergartens in smog” is an analysis comparing the data of the Chief Inspectorate for Environmental Protection on air pollution concentrations with the distribution of almost 12 kindergartens. It also assesses how the concentration of smog in different parts of the country affects the health of children under five. The report shows that none of the kindergartens is located in a place where the cleanliness of the air meets the WHO standards, while over 60 percent. where the quality exceeds Polish standards.
– In the most polluted places in Poland, the risk of lower respiratory tract infection, e.g. pneumonia or bronchitis, increases by 1/4 per year in young children. About 12 percent the risk of going to hospital with pneumonia on the polluted day of the year also increases. This scale of the problem concerns areas with as many as 1000 kindergartens – informs Łukasz Adamkiewicz from the # 13 Foundation, co-author of the report. Until the situation really improves, parents of young children can take measures to reduce their exposure to smog. It is worth monitoring the air quality, e.g. using one of the available phone applications. It must be remembered that the smog alarm in Poland is announced at absurdly high concentrations of PM10 dust, equal to 300 μg / m3 per day. It is a good idea to make sure that the kindergarten your child attends also monitors air quality and avoids taking children outside during high pollution levels. Many preschool institutions are aware of the problem.
– Our kindergarten has introduced its own warning system. Every morning we check the level of air pollution in the CIEP mobile application and, depending on the result, we put different colors and expressions of different emotions on the preschool notice board – from a smiling green face, which means that the group will be able to go for a walk, to a sad red face, which informs the children that on that day, unfortunately, there is no way to play outside – says Renata Grajda from the Myszka Mepi kindergarten in Warsaw’s Wawer.