It’s hardly a secret that air pollution levels up and down the United Kingdom leave a lot to be desired. In fact, there are certain towns and cities across the UK that are among the most polluted in Europe, when it comes to exactly how clean and safe the air is to breathe. Vehicles may be becoming more fuel-efficient and generally greener than ever before, but we are still facing an era of near-unprecedented air pollution that needs to be taken seriously. 
Here at Take My Scrap Car, we work hard to ensure that as many old and inefficient vehicles as possible are taken off UK roads each year. Not only does the removal of inefficient cars make a big difference in its own right, but to recycle millions of tons of scrap metal is to reduce energy consumption in many manufacturing settings by as much as 95%. Suffice to say, with around 1 million cars being scrapped in the UK every year, it’s a cause that’s more than worth fighting for!
So in order to educate rather than simply alarm, what follows is a brief overview of six surprising and undeniably shocking facts about air pollution:
- While it may be invisible and ignored by most, air pollution represents one of the biggest killers of all in the United Kingdom. Prolonged exposure to polluted air has been linked with a variety of serious and deadly diseases, including several forms of cancer, asthma, stroke, heart disease and more. The rates of these and other diseases are almost always considerably higher in areas where air pollution is worse.
- According to the results of a study carried out by the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, a terrifying 40,000 early deaths each and every year are attributed to air pollution. And that’s in the United Kingdom alone – when you consider the problem on a global scale, the figure is even more horrifying.
- Drugs and alcohol may be deadly in their own right, but on a global basis research has shown that air pollution kills more people than drug and alcohol abuse. Not only this, but more people are killed by air pollution every year than in road traffic accidents – the global annual death toll being higher than that of HIV and malaria combined.
- Despite the fact that air pollution in London today isn’t considered as bad as the Great Smog of 1952 to 1953, the past two years have brought about the same number of deaths directly due to air pollution as during this historic disaster. In London alone, up to 9,000 people die early every year due to air pollution.
- Interestingly, research has shown that dangerous emissions can be up to 250% higher inside a vehicle than they are on the outside.
- Last but not least, when taking into account the above points that prove just how dangerous air pollution is, it is almost unthinkable that more than 11 million vehicles on the roads are now known to have passed air pollution tests by cheating the system.
