The new year is here, and with it, a time to view India’s old challenges with new eyes. Although pollution affects everyone, the health of those whose work keeps them outdoors is more vulnerable as they are constantly breathing poor-quality air.
Our country is urbanising. Our cities are unique, powered as much by the state as by millions of people, whose enterprise and labour keep us functional. Think of the traffic policemen, municipal sweepers, waste pickers, security guards and street vendors. If it wasn’t for them, our cities would be so much harder to navigate. Yet, data shows us that doing their work harms them.
A 2023 study by Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group and the Clean Air Fund, advised by Randeep Guleria and Tejas Menon Suri, recorded abnormal pulmonary function results in 75% waste pickers, 86% safai karamcharis and 86% security guards. In contrast, 45% of participants in the control group suffered from abnormal lung function. No severe cases of lung illness were observed among the control group, otherwise observed in 17% waste pickers, 27% safai karamcharis, and 10% security guards. Women participants in all studied groups had lower lung function than males. Similar trends are likely in delivery gig workers, construction workers and street vendors.
Their tragedy also harms the economy. A study by Dalberg Advisors suggests in 2019, air pollution-related productivity loss, illness, work absences and death cost Indian businesses ₹7 lakh crore. Year-on-year, air pollution could cost around 3% of India’s total Gross Domestic Product. This doesn’t include the informal sector or losses that government institutions might incur. Note that the impact on long-term health and disease has never been evaluated in detail.
The solutions lie in reduced air quality index throughout the year. As an interim measure, three approaches are essential: Protecting the most vulnerable, minimising exposure, and adapting urban management to peak pollution.
Air pollution is gendered. Acknowledging that will reduce the impact on women workers and the next generation. Women are differently impacted by air pollution, particularly if they are pregnant or are likely to be pregnant, and pass on toxicity to the next generation. As primary caregivers, women cannot work when air pollution causes illness in the family, or when schools close down. Where such workers belong to the formal sector, such as the traffic police or municipal sweepers, duties should be allocated away from arterial roads, industrial areas or sites of high pollution. Additional leave should be factored in when schools close. Informal workers should also be suitably compensated for hazardous air quality and school closure.
Protecting outdoor workers has limited benefits when the AQI is continuously high, but some protection is better than nothing at all. Protective gear, avoiding work in peak pollution and design shifts are key to reducing exposures, where they can be implemented. Medical science tells us to move past the masks-alone paradigm, and also protect the eyes, preventing particulate matter from settling on hair, shoes and clothes that will be removed at home, and include behaviour change as part of exposure prevention. Instead of watching street vendors breathing in ultra-toxic pollutants from tailpipes as they sit, why not encourage them to set up tables and seating at levels higher than tailpipes? This can only be done if workers’ health is prioritised, measured and monitored. Similarly, significantly subsidising devices to keep outdoor workers warm with incentives for uptake will reduce open burning for thermal comfort.
Governments across states must collaborate and focus on the target groups, to identify and develop protective gear in context, as well as understand its limitations. This cannot be the same across the country. In humid Kochi, municipal workers near a smothering landfill cannot use the same mask as street vendors in colder months in Punjab. To get this right, innovations, competitions, and building up cultural practices will all be needed. Such investment must become a repeated activity, for devices can tear, break and become outdated (saturated). Innovations build upon each other.
Agility in municipal governance can play an important role. In many parts of India, the Air Quality Index (AQI) is the highest in the morning and late evening. For a few hours after noon, it is slightly better. Why not shift peak work to during that time, where possible? From sweeping roads to field inspections, work timings can reduce exposures.
Setting norms for worker protection is important. It ensures clarity and gestures to protection as a duty. Limited State capacity will make this hard to monitor, but with some funds for non-State actors, these can be enforced. Partnerships can become shields against the brutal impact of bad air.
The health care sector is under-equipped to manage air pollution victims, especially workers with limited knowledge and access. Not only should the capacity be increased, but innovative health care for outdoor workers should be rolled out in all industrial areas and national clean air programme (NCAP) cities not meeting standards. This is easier for formal sector actors than the vast majority of the informal sector. They should also be compensated for the days when the AQI reaches beyond unhealthy, and be encouraged not to work. Also, one should develop regular check-up mechanisms to pick up the effects of exposure to polluted air early so that appropriate interventions can be planned before it is too late. Once pollution causes significant and permanent organ damage, it will not only increase health costs but also affect livelihoods.
Nothing can compensate for the absence of clean air. While India’s policymakers, states, innovators and others work at reducing the AQI to the green level, protecting those who run our cities becomes a national imperative.
Randeep Guleria, a pulmonologist, is former director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Bharati Chaturvedi is director of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group. The views expressed are personal
Bharati Chaturvedi is an environmentalist and writer. She is the founder and director of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group. ...view detail
Saving the Capital’s outdoor workers
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0
08.01.2024
The new year is here, and with it, a time to view India’s old challenges with new eyes. Although pollution affects everyone, the health of those whose work keeps them outdoors is more vulnerable as they are constantly breathing poor-quality air.
Our country is urbanising. Our cities are unique, powered as much by the state as by millions of people, whose enterprise and labour keep us functional. Think of the traffic policemen, municipal sweepers, waste pickers, security guards and street vendors. If it wasn’t for them, our cities would be so much harder to navigate. Yet, data shows us that doing their work harms them.
A 2023 study by Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group and the Clean Air Fund, advised by Randeep Guleria and Tejas Menon Suri, recorded abnormal pulmonary function results in 75% waste pickers, 86% safai karamcharis and 86% security guards. In contrast, 45% of participants in the control group suffered from abnormal lung function. No severe cases of lung illness were observed among the control group, otherwise observed in 17% waste pickers, 27% safai karamcharis, and 10% security guards. Women participants in all studied groups had lower lung function than males. Similar trends are likely in delivery gig workers, construction workers and street vendors.
Their tragedy also harms the economy. A study by Dalberg Advisors suggests in 2019, air pollution-related productivity loss, illness, work absences and death cost Indian businesses ₹7 lakh crore. Year-on-year, air pollution could cost around 3% of India’s total Gross Domestic Product.........
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