Tube Pollution Better Than Road Pollution

By Rob Last edited 226 months ago
Tube Pollution Better Than Road Pollution
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Ah summer: the clear blue skies, the long balmy nights...and the unbearable, suffocating trips to work on the Underground.

But at least there is a bit of good news this year, and it comes courtesy of those crazy scientist types.

A recently published study entitled The London Underground: dust and hazards to health (PDF), has claimed that although it's still "polluted and extremely dusty" the tube "has much lower levels of more hazardous ultrafine particles than are found in the air near the capital's roads."

According to the report "the system harbours larger and heavier particles that are made of iron, rather than carbon." We're not sure how 'large' these particles are exactly but we're assuming that they're not goign to be casuing any obstructions on the track any time soon.

On a happy note, the research team also found that, "weight for weight, the risks from Underground dust are much more comparable to iron oxide welding fume than to particles in outdoor air. But the exposure is much lower than would be required to cause lung disease."

Well, that's a relief.

You can read a summary of the report's findings here.

Last Updated 17 May 2005