Clearing the air in Cape Town’s informal settlements

The City of Cape Town has a vision of being ‘the city with the cleanest air in Africa’. This dream will move a step closer with the Khayelitsha Air Pollution Strategy, a partnership between the City and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and the University of Cape Town. The project is funded by the Poverty Alleviation programme of the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT).

The Khayelitsha Air Pollution Strategy is a pilot project to improve air quality in informal areas of the City. It will involve a detailed survey of households, businesses and other sources of air pollution in Khayelitsha in order to establish an emissions database and analyse future scenarios of air quality. Survey staff will be recruited and trained from the local community in early 2006 and the project is expected to be completed in December 2006.

The need for this project has arisen out of air quality monitoring which shows that the PM₁₀ (particulate matter) concentrations in Khayelitsha frequently exceed safety guidelines. The readings for Khayelitsha are on average 25% higher than Goodwood and 70% higher than central Cape Town.

The source of these high PM₁₀ levels is thought to be mostly from wood and tyre burning, along with a large amount of windblown dust, due to the presence of unpaved roads and pavements. High levels of PM₁₀ are a concern as they have been shown to affect people with respiratory conditions such as asthma, and increase the incidence of hospital admissions related to breathing problems. Increased levels of chronic bronchitis, asthma, coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath are also caused by high levels of PM₁₀.

The project will investigate community based strategies to better identify the main sources of PM₁₀ in the area. It is planned to implement a small-scale pilot project with community support, which would later feed into broader, sustainable interventions to reduce the levels of PM₁₀ in Khayelitsha.

The City of Cape Town has recently installed an air quality monitoring station in the Site C area of Khayelitsha. This station will continue to monitor air quality and measure the effectiveness of the selected interventions.

Through the project, the community will become aware of the health impacts of air pollution and of ways to reduce emissions. A reduction of air pollution will result in savings in health costs for the City. This will have particular benefits for patients suffering from AIDS and tuberculosis, for example, and will also result in fewer sick days, and increased productivity in the work place.

The objectives of the Khayelitsha Air Pollution Strategy are to:

• Identify the main sources of PM₁₀ in the area through conducting a survey of household fuel use, as well as surveys of business and traffic causing poor air quality;
• Improve skills levels of the local people employed on the project, to increase their chances of finding employment;
• Educate households as to the health impacts of air pollution, and what they can do to reduce air pollution;
• Promote cleaner fuel usage;
• Identify and pilot-test ways to improve air quality in terms of both their effectiveness and acceptability to the community.

The project is managed by staff from the Directorate: City Health, together with representatives of Scientific Services (Air Quality Monitoring) and Environmental Planning, as well as Information and Knowledge Management and Transport, Roads and Stormwater. A project steering committee has been established and, in early 2006, a Project Advisory Committee will be established comprising local councillors, business and community representatives.

For more information contact City Health at 590 1419.