Summary:
- Air pollution is harmful to human beings and other living things.
- About 22 million people die from air pollution each year.
- Breathing polluted air increases the risk of developing lung diseases such as asthma and lung cancer.
- Air pollution can also harm the environment.
- The pollutants include particulates, ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and carbon monoxide.
- Heavy metals, such as mercury and lead, are toxic to living things and can enter food chains from the atmosphere.
- The higher up a food chain that humans eat, the greater the levels of toxic metals they take in.