Pakistan needs to pay attention to the introduction of electric vehicles as a recent phenomenon of smog in Lahore was due to the traffic emission. Smog policy recently drafted by the department do talk about vehicle emissions but it only calls for improving the fuel by introducing fuel with low sulphur, led and other contents. The whole world is going towards electronic vehicles, which is greener technology.
These views were expressed by Asian Environmental Services Head Aleem Butt while talking to a select group of the Environmental Journalists Association of Pakistan (EJAP) during visit to state of the art laboratory set up by his organization in the provincial metropolis to analyze air and water pollution. The company also has a modern lab to analyze the soil strength before construction of any type of building.
These labs have all the required certifications including ISO-9001:2015, ISO-14001:2015 and accreditation with the Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC), he added and said that their state of the art laboratory can help analyze, air, water and even soil samples to check its strength before any sort of construction. "We are serving customers both from the public and private sector to help them analyze their samples," he said.
Aleem Butt said that the government had introduced LED free fuel in the country but there is a need to monitor it regularly. He said air pollution is very critical and managing to keep it at the lowest ebb is essential. Recently, a study by the World Health Organization (WHO) claims that 1.6 million deaths per annum are directly happening because of the air pollution, Butt added.
Similarly, he said arsenic and LED presence in water bodies of the country is also higher than the WHO standards. He disclosed that recently they conducted survey and analysis of water taken from RO plant in an Industrial area and found LED in it. Talking about ill effects of air pollution on human health, he said most of the people think that it only affects our skin or respiratory system but it leads to cardiovascular diseases too.
Counting the health conditions caused by air pollution, he said irritation of eyes, nose, throat, headache and anxiety due to impact on the central nervous system, impacts on the respiratory system such as irrigation, inflammation and reduced lung function or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, liver, spleen, blood and reproductive system.