Bangkok's Air Pollution Slowly Evaporating

[george]

Bangkok's air pollution slowly evaporating

BANGKOK: -- For a decade, Bangkok cobbler Swang Porgaew has staked out a place beneath a staircase where he fixes shoes while wearing a mask to filter out the toxic fumes from his industrial glue and the city buses.

"Pollution is always bad because of the buses," he said as he stitched the sole of a black high-heeled shoe and watched a crowded bus rumble away from the nearby stop.

"But it's getting better," he said.

Even though pedestrians and street workers like Swang wear surgical masks almost as often as sunglasses, the city's reputation for filthy air is gradually evaporating as measures aimed at cutting vehicle emissions and expanding mass transit begin to pay off.

The city has seen a 47 percent decrease in the amount of harmful small dust particles since 1997, according to Bangkok's Pollution Control Department.

The latest data show the Thai capital's air quality comes within limits set by the US, and just slightly higher than standards in the European Union.

While Bangkok's air quality is still worse than that of Asia's cleanest cities, such as Tokyo and Singapore, the fall in pollution levels is getting the Thai capital noticed.

Jitendra Shah, the World Bank's coordinator for the environment, says the statistics prove what many residents have observed -- that Bangkok's air quality has improved considerably over the past two decades.

"Walking around the streets I have found that breathing is definitely easier here," said Shah, who has worked in the Thai capital since the early 1990s and attributes the cleaner air to a civic dedication to eradicating environmental dangers.

"Bangkok has done lots of things to improve air quality. Improving the emissions standards, for example, has improved it slowly but gradually," he said.

Thailand is also encouraging vehicles on Bangkok's gridlocked streets to use compressed natural gas, a cheaper, cleaner and odorless alternative to petrol or diesel.

Twarath Sutabutr, Ministry of Energy spokesman, said: "We are promoting the usage of natural gas in the sector because it's cheaper and cleaner with zero percent sulfur and significantly lower emissions than petrol."

The number of vehicles using natural gas in Bangkok is small but growing fast, having tripled to almost 20,000 in the past 18 months thanks to incentives that cut the cost of engine conversion, the Land Transport Department said.

This has led to an explosion in natural gas consumption, up 71 percent last year to 93 million litres (24.5 million gallons). In the first seven months of this year, the total topped off at 110 million litres (29 million gallons).

Construction sites are monitored so that dust pollution is kept down, deputy Bangkok governor Bannasopit Mekvichai said.

And the government is spending billions of dollars to expand rail networks, aiming to get three million people a day off the roads and onto mass transit by 2012.

Bangkok already has three lines -- two above ground and one below -- with the 75 kilometres (45 miles) of track carrying almost 630,000 passengers a day.

Although only the city centre is served by rail, more lines are being added, said Pranote Suriya, deputy head of the city's traffic planning office.

A new line connecting downtown Bangkok to the city's new airport is already under construction, and cabinet has approved another line bringing outlying parts of the capital into the network.

Even with the new lines, Pranote warns the city must keep working to manage both traffic and pollution as Thailand's booming auto industry puts record numbers of cars on the streets every year.

"The number of registered new cars has yet to decrease. Many people still need their cars to come from Bangkok's suburbs to reach the mass transit," Pranote said.

From his perch beneath stairs leading up to the elevated Skytrain, cobbler Swang Porgaew says that the expanded mass transit system has helped improve air quality.

As a traffic jam begins to fill the street nearby, he says: "When the cars pass by, I can't really smell the gas anymore."

--AFP 2007-10-27