Original source : http://www.smashinglists.com
Posted : September 2013
Author : Kate
Do you live in a polluted city? It’s a complaint often heard
by the residents of “super-cities” like New York
and London that
their air isn’t clean, but it might surprise you to know that both those cities
have relatively healthy air, according to the WHO. On their air pollution
database, they use a measure called PM10, which tells you the amount of small
particles found in the air of each city – small being smaller than 10
microns. These are the particles that you can breathe into your lungs, so it’s
an important measure to look at when it comes to health risks. On their scale, New York comes in at
around 21ug/m3 (micrograms per cubic meter), compared to a global average of
71 – and the lower, the better. London
also does pretty well with just 29 ug/m3. So where are all these cities that are bumping up the global
average? The results may surprise you, as most lists use the 2007 top 10,
as published by Time (this list also takes into account other types of
pollutants. But things change quickly, and the data from the WHO in 2011 has
some new contenders, so here are our Top 10 Cities With The Most Polluted Air.