Life, as history has shown us, can survive months without sunlight, some life survives with no sunlight at all. A man can survive for over 40 days without food. Take away his water and its down to three or four days. But take away his air and it's down to minutes. And yet that is just what we're doing every day.

Enormous amounts of gases, aerosols and dust particles produced by industrial processes and the combustion of fossil fuels, are thrown out into the atmosphere daily. This mix of pollutants exacts a considerable and long term toll, not only on the environment and global warming, but also directly on our health.

A study by APHIS  (Air Pollution and Health: A European Information System) in 26 European cities showed that even a small reduction in PM10 levels on the long term, can have a great positive effect on health. The same study showed that a 5 µg/m3 reduction of PM10 levels reduced by 15% the number of deaths due to long term exposure to pollution.

A recent epidemiological study conducted in the Netherlands, showed that if you live within 100 metres of a highway, your chances of having or developing and dieing from a cardiovascular or pulmonary disease, are twice as high as someone living at a greater distance from the road.  Pollution causes 3'700 deaths and incurs 4.2 billion francs in health costs every year in Switzerland alone.

The following tables show statistically the effects of pollution on people's health and the economy in Switzerland.

Years of life lost and illnesses due to PM10 pollution in 2000

* days of hospitalisation ** number of cases   Source: ARE

Deaths in Switzerland in 2000

Sources: ARE, Commission fédérale de l'hygiène de l'air, OFS

One striking fact that these tables show is the fact that you have more chance of dieing from a pollution related illness than you do of dieing in a car accident! And the amount of years of life lost due to pollution is like 52 people who would live to 75 years old, dieing at birth every year in Switzerland.

The table above shows that Lausanne, a small city, frequently passes the levels of PM10 allowable, both daily and yearly limits.

Many pollution counter measures tackle the problem of particulate pollution while ignoring the gaseous, augmenting the global warming effect by eliminating the particles thereby reducing global dimming but leaving the gases which increases the blanketing effect of GHGs, helping to warm the planet. Current measures to reduce pollution levels in cities are just not effective. Some, as in Lausanne with the introduction of parking restrictions and timed lights, are detrimental to city commerce and interrupt the regular flow of traffic.

Until hybrid and electric cars are commonplace and all power is generated from renewable energy, there will be pollution in cities affecting the health of its citizens and its economy.

The SCAF is a means to immediately and comparatively cheaply, combat this problem. to compare the construction cost to payback, download this workbook.

The table below shows the average levels of some pollutants in cities around Europe. (Not every pollutant is monitored in every city)