Air quality in Brampton

Is Brampton a city with clean air?

Brampton is a city located in Ontario province, classified as a suburban city belonging to the greater Toronto area. It has a sizeable population of over 593 thousand citizens, coming from humble beginnings as a small village with only 50 residents, to a massive city heavily involved in the retail industry, information technology, as well as the science and research sector. It has seen a large influx of people migrating from the Indian subcontinent that has also been a contributing factor in bringing the population number up by a considerable amount.

With a growing population and also being counted as a prominent economic hub of the country, Brampton would thus have raised pollution levels as a result of this industrial activity coupled with the mass movement of people, with thousands of commuters moving in and out of the city on a daily basis. Despite this, it still manages to maintain a very respectable quality of air, something that is consistently seen in a majority of cities within Canada, with only a select few falling into the more polluted bracket. In 2019, Brampton came in with a PM2.5 yearly average of 6.7 μg/m³, a very clean reading that placed it into the World Health Organizations (WHO's) target goal for the best quality of air at 10 μg/m³ or under. This is something that many cities round the world strive to achieve, and as mentioned, despite some anthropogenic and industrial factors increasing pollution levels in certain areas, overall, Brampton has a very good quality of air.

What are some factors that cause pollution in Brampton?

Much of the year round ambient readings of pollution in Brampton are caused by the ever increasing use of vehicles by the local population, and with the rise of home deliveries and other similar services, there has also been a substantial increase in the amount of larger, heavy duty vehicles such as trucks or lorries populating the roads. These often run on diesel fuels, which can put out considerably more dangerous pollutants than cleaner or more sustainable alternatives would. When coupled with the heavy industrial or food and beverage based loads they carry, the pollutive output can be pushed up even further due to their great weight and the burden it places on the vehicle and engine as a whole.

Other sources of pollution include emissions from industrial zones, with factories and power plants being the two main offenders, with factories utilizing coal as a main fuel source, coupled with any pollutive byproduct that is a released as a result of the manufacturing process (as an example, any factory that deals with plastics will inevitably release some form of plastic fumes or micro particles, both of which are highly detrimental to human health and the environment). The burning of woods and other organic materials in households that use traditional stoves or fireplaces can be a contributing factor, more prominent during the winter months due to the harsher differences in temperature.

When is the air quality at its worst in Brampton?

With many cities round the world experiencing peaks and dips throughout the year due to a combination of human based activity, as well as meteorological factors such as extremes of temperature playing a role, Brampton itself is not exempt from this phenomenon, albeit with considerably less prominent differences in PM2.5 readings.

Observing the PM2.5 readings taken over 2019, Brampton showed a noticeable increase in its pollution readings in correlation to the winter months, with the PM2.5 count rising towards the end of the year. October came in with a reading of 5.5 μg/m³, which was then followed by a reading of 8.6 μg/m³ in November, and then a further rise up to 9 μg/m³ in December. This showed December to be the most polluted month of the year in 2019, only 1.1 units away from being moved out of the WHO's target goal and into the next pollution ratings bracket. Whilst this is still a good reading by any means, when compared to the cleaner months of the year it is still a higher number and should always be treated as a time of the year when pollution levels have the chance to cause more adverse effects to the population.

What is Brampton doing to improve its pollution levels?

Like many cities in Canada, air pollution has become an increasingly more pertinent topic in recent years, with many measures being put into place to tackle the issue of pollution. Recent studies have shown that Canada contributes over 73% more pollution than the United States does, a considerable number that still has a way to go to see improvement.

Brampton itself, along with many other cities in Canada, have reported a decrease in emission levels from factories and other similar businesses in recent year, and thus whilst this is a step in the right direction, is also an indicator of what needs to be done in order to improve emission levels further. With its steps towards the gradual phasing out of unclean fuel sources such as diesel, Brampton may see further improvements in its pollution levels in the following years. More stringent measures on businesses and factories that produce pollution are being introduced as well, in an effort to get individual corporations to comply with emission standards and thus heavily reduce the amount of pollution that cities like Brampton, and indeed the whole of Canada, give out on a yearly basis.

What are some pollutants found in the air in Brampton?

With the aforementioned diesel based fuels still being in use, as well as a large amount of pollution being released from personal vehicles such as cars, as well as the numerous factories and industrial sites located across the city, there would be a few main chemical compounds found in the air in Brampton. These include among them ones such as carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂). The last two are the main offenders found emanating from vehicles, and besides being harmful to human health when respired, are also significant contributors to acid rain and can thus be damaging to the environment and various ecosystems.

Other pollutants found in Brampton would include microscopic particles of rubber, released in large amounts from vehicle tires, as well as microplastics from the overuse of plastic materials. Black carbon and volatile organic compounds (VOC's) are also a prevalent pollutant, with some VOC's such as benzene, methylene chloride and xylene being amongst the ones found in the air in Brampton.