The Air Quality Campaign
The Air Quality Campaign has focused on community monitoring of air quality in pollution hotspots and
of big industrial emitters. The community monitoring work uses the ‘Bucket Brigade’ methodology
[http://www.groundwork.org.za/Press%20Releases/21%20January%202002.html], which is designed to
empower communities by enabling them to create knowledge in a technical field and so expose
government and industry’s use of purposeful ignorance to deny community claims about pollution and
health. Government has now established monitoring systems in some areas and groundWork continues
to enable communities to monitor the official monitors.
Through this campaign, groundWork and its community allies have had considerable success in shaping
the
National
Environment
Management:
Air
Quality
Act
2004
[https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/legislations/nema_amendment_act39.pdf].
Broadly, the campaign has now been dealing with the regulations and standards produced in terms of
the Act. groundWork is also pushing for the regulatory regime to cover more pollutants, such as metals,
fine particulates and dioxins. National and international exchanges enable people to build solidarity in
the face of corporate abuse.
This is linked to the reality that climate change is a reality that is already impacting on the African
continent in an ever increasing manner. groundWork understands that this ecological crisis is part of the
broader political and financial crisis and seeks to respond to climate change from an energy justice
perspective. Because of this, the Air Quality Campaign has been incorporated into the other campaigns,
and in particular the Coal Campaign.
Read more…
History
When groundWork was established in 1999, South Africa was generally regarded as a ‘lawless society’
with regard to governance on air pollution. There were no air pollution standards for both industrial
emissions and ambient (outdoor) air quality and there was no independent public air pollution
monitoring that could meaningfully direct government to the source of air pollution, despite air
pollution being widespread and evident. Thus industry polluted with impunity.
The result of this legacy is that vulnerable community people bore brunt of industrial pollution. In 2002,
research commissioned for groundWork and local community people in the Vaal Triangle estimated that
nine working days per person were lost each year due to air pollution-related illnesses in the area. It also
indicated that at the time, government was footing a bill of approximately 300 million rand annually to
provide health services for people impacted by air pollution. The report recognised that due to
government’s failure to provide electricity to all households, acute illness was caused by indoor air
pollution as people burn coal in homes as their primary source of energy. This was further compounded
by chronic illness caused by the emissions of unregulated industry in the heartland of the South African
petro-chemical energy complex.
In
research
carried
out
by
groundWork
in
2003
[http://www.groundwork.org.za/Publications/Reports/SpecialReports/AirMonitoringReport2003.pdf], it
was discovered that 40% of illnesses treated in clinics in Sasolburg – within this industrial heartland –
were respiratory-related. In south Durban, independent research undertaken by the Universities of
Michigan and KwaZulu-Natal put the risk of cancer 250 times higher than the norm in residential areas
around oil refineries.
In 2006, government attested to these findings when the then Minister of Environment and Tourism
indicated that South Africa spent more than 4 billion rand annually on respiratory problems related to
polluted air. In the government’s 2008 State of Environment Report, government recognised these
challenges and indicates that air quality is generally deteriorating in South Africa, health problems are
increasing due to air pollution and that greenhouse gas emissions are also increasing.
However, government’s response was not all dismal. With an increase in civil society activism on air
pollution in the last decade, government produced the Air Quality Act, emission and ambient air quality
standards and the Department of Environmental Affairs has declared three air pollution Priority Areas areas where air quality is so dismal that it is impacting upon health. Air pollution monitoring has
increased, air pollution standards and air quality plans for various major urban areas have been
developed, and in certain cases industrial air pollution has decreased.
It must be acknowledged, however, that legislation takes years if not decades to develop systems that
actually result in improved environmental conditions. This lag time is normal and groundWork
recognises that despite having success in getting government to develop the relevant legislation, the
challenge lies in ensuring that the required regulations that give meaning to legislation are developed in
a manner that strengthens the constitutional commitment to an environment that is not harmful to
one's health and well-being. Furthermore challenges lie in attaining the necessary capacity at all levels
to implement the requirements of the Act.