Pretoria - Government plans to put up billboards that will report live on the state of air with health messages in highly populated areas in the country, National Air Quality Officer, Dr Thuli Mdluli, said on Tuesday.
Mdluli said the billboards will have health messages, which will inform the public whether the air is safe or in a bad state.
“If the air quality is bad, it will tell you to stay indoors, if you are part of the sensitive population… A person with asthma is sensitive… that person needs to know that they cannot be out doing their business on this day because there is an air quality problem, like veld fires,” she said.
Speaking at a media briefing on the state of air and regulation of air quality legislation in Pretoria on Tuesday, Mdluli said the billboards will also provide information on whether companies are complying with the act to keep air in a good state.
Mdluli said the legislation to regulate air pollution in South Africa was first promulgated in 1965.
She said the billboards are expected to be up by 2016.
The rollout of the billboards will depend on the availability of funds.
Ekurhuleni was named as the country’s most polluted metro because of all the pollution sources that are used to measure pollution, such as industrial pollution, pollution from mine dumps and mining, were found in the metro.
One of the cleanest towns in terms of pollution was Sutherland in the Northern Cape.
Mdluli said the Department of Environmental Affairs had picked up inefficiencies in the way that monitoring stations were being managed in the country.
“We are setting up an asset management system nationally that will help us to manage all the stations that are government owned and just see ahead of time if they need maintenance or new parts… because we have a duty to report compliance to the people of South Africa. It’s a duty given to us by the Constitution and the act,” she said. - SAnews.gov.za
