Reducing Toxic Air Pollutants
Toxic air pollutants are the suspected cause of major illnesses and issues with reproductive problems. These pollutants stay in the environment for long periods, which can affect all living things and start a chain of negative events. In particular, smokestacks and automobiles are the two main sources of toxic air pollutants. When refueling, the gases turn into vapor that leak into the air. "Before the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, EPA regulated air toxics one chemical at a time." The EPA now regulates pollutants by categories of industries because they release more than one chemical at a time. Some of the categories are, chemical plants, incinerators, dry cleaners, and manufacturers of wood furniture. Since the 1990 Clean Air Act, air toxics from large industries have already been reduced by 70 percent.
Read more about this topic: National Emissions Standards Act
Famous quotes containing the words reducing, toxic and/or air:
“It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“America today is capable of terrific intolerance about smoking, or toxic waste that threatens trout. But only a deeply confused society is more concerned about protecting lungs than minds, trout than black women.”
—Garry Wills (b. 1934)
“The air has finally gotten to the place that we can breathe it together.”
—Septima Clark (1898–1987)