Deadly air in our cities: the invisible killer
by Tim Smedley from Environment | The Guardian on (#4B7W2)
Traffic pollution is putting our children at risk. We meet campaigners - many of them concerned mothers - fighting back
In the winter you can taste and smell the pollution," says Kylie ap Garth, drinking coffee in a cafe in Hackney, east London. "My eldest is eight and he has asthma. Being outside, he would have a tight chest and cough. I just assumed it was the cold weather. I didn't realise there was a link to the cars."
She is not exaggerating. The main road from Bethnal Green tube station is clogged with traffic, the smell of diesel fumes mixing with smoke from barbecue grill restaurants and construction dust. Anyone trying to escape from the roadside to the canal towpath finds only that the fumes are swapped with coal smoke from the canal boats.
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