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https://thedriven.io/2024/08/06/the-urgent-need-for-tougher-trucking-rules-to-protect-communities-around-warehouses/>
"The growth of online shopping was accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, and
e-commerce revenue approximately doubled in the United States in the past 5
years.
In the neighborhoods where new warehouses have been built to meet this increase
in demand, the trend has brought noticeable changes, including emissions from
large tractor-trailers that bring containers from nearby ports and vans that
collect packages for home delivery.
These vehicles emit harmful pollutants including fine particulate matter and a
group of gases called nitrogen oxides (NOₓ).
While the warehouses don’t emit pollution like a power plant, their operations
mean that truck traffic and tailpipe emissions concentrate around them.
Researchers have detected increases in air pollution in communities where new
warehouses have opened.
We at the ICCT partnered with researchers from The George Washington University
on a new nationwide study in
Nature Communications that helps quantify how
much warehouses worsen local air pollution in the United States.
The study focuses on nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), which is associated with new
asthma cases in children, respiratory symptoms such as coughing and difficulty
breathing, and other adverse health impacts.
NO₂ emissions also lead to the formation of fine particulate matter and ozone
in the air, which increase the risk of dying prematurely from heart and lung
diseases, cancers, and other conditions.
Our study analyzed NO₂ satellite data along with a database of nearly 150,000
warehouses in the contiguous United States. The figure below illustrates the
pattern in annual average NO₂ pollution around a warehouse, averaged across all
locations.
It shows that there is a spike in annual NO₂ of nearly 20% associated with
warehouses. The highest NO₂ concentration is around 4 km away from the
warehouse in the direction of the wind. Additionally, larger numbers of loading
docks or parking spaces were associated with more truck traffic and higher
levels of NO₂.
Like others, our study also found that census tracts with greater numbers of
warehouses tended to have higher shares of residents of color. This aligns with
results from previous studies which showed that racial and ethnic inequities in
NO₂ exposure are largely attributable to diesel truck traffic. Clearly,
warehouse-related truck emissions are important to understand when taking
action to address air pollution exposure disparities."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
