Talk:Air pollution in Turkey

Where to find a good estimate of total annual cost?
With value of a life year being over 10,000 lira and the population being over 80 million the 0.2 year reduction in life would seem to multiply up to over 160 billion lira. But is that right? Anyway that would not be an annual cost presumably? Is there an estimate of total annual cost somewhere? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Possibilities for "did you know"
If and when this article is rated "good" it will be eligable for Did you know. I think it would be nice to write something positive and encouraging. Possible completion of "Did you know that......" include:

shutting down all the 20th century coal-fired power stations in the country, creating low emission zones in cities and running electric ferries across the Bosphoros could all be part of the solution to air pollution in Turkey.

the right to clean air was recognised in the 6th century, and air pollution in Turkey could be stopped in the 21st.

More could be added from OECD survey and IEA report both 2021
If anyone has time please add more from the 2021 OECD survey already listed in the sources section. Cite it with "edit source" and or nearby page numbers.

Same for 2021 IEA report Chidgk1 (talk) 13:18, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Such as p 176 seems to say that pollution limit depends on fuel type - is that right? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:15, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Do any of the problems with the Turkish article also apply to this article?
Hello

You recently tagged the Turkish article as having a lot of problems. If there are any problems with this English article please could you detail them here. If not, as your English is good, would you have time to fix the Turkish article by translating from this article? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:24, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Further suggestions
Hello Chidgk1 and friends working on this article,

I think this is a very wide-ranging and helpful article and gives a really good overview of the problem in Turkey. :)

As promised, I've read through and have a few small suggestions for improvements...

1. There are several places in the article where we refer to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. These were updated in September 2021 so the references and comparisons are likely to be wrong now.

For example:

"Researchers estimate that reducing air pollution to World Health Organization limits would save seven times the number of lives that were lost in traffic accidents in 2017."

The guideline values are now lower and more lives would be saved by implementing them. So, for example, on PM2.5, the annual exposure guideline has halved from 10 to 5 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3). On nitrogen dioxide, the annual guideline changed from 40 to 10 µg/m3 (75% lower).

For the new guideline values, see: https://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-releases/2021/new-who-global-air-quality-guidelines-aim-to-save-millions-of-lives-from-air-pollution and https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/345334

(They're more like "guidelines" than "limits", incidentally - because they're not mandated by law and there are no safe lower "limits" for some pollutants.)

But we could change the text to a specific date so it is still correct. For example, "In 2017 for whenever, researchers estimated that reducing air pollution to World Health Organization limits would save seven times the number of lives that were lost in traffic accidents that year." That would still be true despite the changed guidelines.

2. "There is no limit on very small airborne particles, which cause lung diseases." I am not sure which particles this refers to? Does it mean all particulates or does it mean specifically PM10, PM2.5...? A bit further down the article, it says: "The air quality index in Turkey does not include particles smaller than 2.5 microns (PM 2.5)", so perhaps we are talking specifically about PM2.5 here.

3. Flue gas emission limits: It says: "mg/Nm3 (milligrams per cubic metre)" This should say "mg/m3"?? Also in the table below.

4. Industry and construction: " Although asbestos was completely banned in 2010, it can still be a risk when older buildings are demolished,[27] in dumps,[28] and in buildings in some rural areas where it occurs naturally.[29]"

The risks of asbestos are often overstated. If left alone in an old building, it doesn't really present a risk. Only when disturbed.

5. Types and levels: I think these are the old World Health Organization guideline levels, not the ones introduced in 2021?

6. " As of 2016 average PM2.5 concentration was 42μg/m3,[40] whereas 10 μg/m3 is the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline,[41]" - again, the WHO guideline is now twice as strict as this (5 μg/m3).

7. "Asthma... can be caused by nitrogen oxides." We have to be a bit careful with this. The causes of asthma are complex and interacting, and I'm not sure you can state absolutely, categorically that a specific air pollutant is a cause? Scientists are still cautious about stating this so baldly. For example, this is the sort of thing you will find in scientific papers and statements:

"Evidence suggests that allergic respiratory diseases such as hay fever and bronchial asthma have become more common world-wide in the last two decades, and the reasons for this increase are still largely unknown. A major responsible factor could be outdoor air pollution, derived from cars and other vehicles." (from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11453319/)

"Events in early life affect the developing lungs and can increase the risk of asthma. These include low-birth weight, prematurity, exposure to tobacco smoke and other sources of air pollution, as well as viral respiratory infections." from https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/asthma

So probably better to talk about air pollution as a risk factor than a cause. "can increase the risk" or whatever.

8. "Medical dangers" --> More references/comparisons involving the WHO guidelines. As above... "Researchers estimate that reducing air pollution to World Health Organization limits would save seven times the number of lives that were lost in traffic accidents in 2017.[64]"

9. "Breathing the air there is equivalent to smoking 38 packs of cigarettes a year".

Comparisons involving cigarettes are sometimes unhelpful/misleading because it's not always clear what is being compared. Do we mean the entire health harm of smoking the cigarettes or do we just mean just the particulates?

If you are interested, it is explained quite well here: http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equivalence/

38 packs a year would be.... 38x20 in a pack = 760 a year so perhaps 2 a day? That sounds somewhere between the EU and Chinese averages, which sounds right for Turkey.

Another complication (mentioned in the Berkeley article) is that particulates released from burning fuels may be more toxic than those from burning tobacco, which also makes it hard to know if we are comparing the same thing (the point made by C. Arden Pope).

10. The History section is quite short and general and the first bit doesn't really relate specifically to the history of Turkey's air pollution. It would be very good to have some much more specific items about Turkey if there are any.

12. Sources of air pollution: It might be helpful to group this into two sections covering outdoor and indoor air pollution. At the moment, it is a little mixed up

Sources of air pollution 1.1 Traffic - OUTDOOR 1.2 Heating and cooking - INDOOR 1.3 Coal-fired power stations - OUTDOOR 1.3.1 Flue gas emission limits - OUTDOOR 1.4 Passive smoking - - INDOOR 1.5 Industry and construction - OUTDOOR

There are other indoor sources too, such as household chemicals used indoors - paints, DIY products, cleaning products, and so on.

But these are just minor improvements - and overall I think you've done a really good job on this article. 45154james (talk) 08:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)