12:11, 21 января 2021, Bishkek - 24.kg news agency , Maria ORLOVA
Every Bishkek resident «had smoked» 200 cigarettes in December 2020 because of the smog. MoveGreen Public Foundation presented such data.
According to the foundation, the American non-governmental organization Berkeley Earth has compared the health risks of a person breathing polluted air to smoking.
«According to their calculations, the impact on human health when breathing air with a level of PM2.5 = 22 μg / m3 is equal to one cigarette. For example: breathing air with PM2.5 = 100 µg / m3 is equal to smoking of about five cigarettes,» MoveGreen said.
The activists analyzed the average daily PM2.5 values in December in the capital of Kyrgyzstan using data from three monitoring stations (Osh market area, Moskovskaya / Umetalieva and the U.S. Embassy), and converted them into the number of cigarettes.
The indicators ranged from 39 to 263 μg / m3 and exceeded the daily standards of the Kyrgyz Republic (35 μg / m3) up to seven times.
«For example, on December 1 and December 27, every resident of the city, including small children and pregnant women, had smoked 12 cigarettes. The total number of cigarettes smoked for the month by each resident of the city, on average, was 200,» the foundation added.
The organization stressed that when breathing polluted air and smoke from cigarettes, people are exposed to risks that can cause diseases such as stroke, asthma, lung cancer, heart disease and others. «The only difference is that smoking is a person’s choice, and people have to breathe every day. Of course, the impact of smog on health depends on the level of PM2.5 and a number of other reasons, such as the amount of air, health status, age, and so on,» MoveGreen said.