Frequently Asked Questions

Air pollution is the release of particles and noxious gases into the atmosphere. These emissions have an impact on human health. The two pollutants of most concern are Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Particulate Matter (PM2.5 or PM10). Nitrogen Dioxide is linked with diesel cars and Particulate Matter is small particles which come from engine and tyre wear and wood burning, as well as dust from construction sites.

Evidence is mounting of associations between air pollution and a number of conditions, such as heart and lung disease, respiratory conditions, dementia and miscarriage, stunted lungs and teenage psychotic episodes. Children and babies are affected more than adults because their lungs are still forming. They are smaller and therefore closer to vehicle exhaust pipes.

In London there are daily air pollution forecasts which give advance warning of pollution hotspots. You can subscribe to the London forecast, or in some surrounding areas you can get forecasts from airAlert. If you’re out and about with small children, take quiet back streets instead of main roads. Stay away from the kerb and stand back as you wait for traffic lights to change. Children and babies are at the height of car exhaust pipes so will be breathing in more pollution than you. You can also protect your children by reducing your own contribution to air pollution, by driving less and only burning wood on special occasions, or not at all.

Any help is really useful to us, no matter how little time you have. Our meetings take place virtually via Zoom on a monthly basis. We have local groups in Brixton/Herne Hill, E17, Redbridge and Greater Manchesterand we’d love you to get in touch if you are interested in helping us to campaign. Let us know by email if there’s anything in particular you’d like to talk about or help with - for example handing out flyers, giving an assembly at your school, writing letters to interior magazines about wood burning, designing a spreadsheet for us, raising funds or whatever you’re good at! Contact us for more info.

Find a couple of other people who want to campaign with you, consider what your main campaign focus is going to be and then email us if you think you might be interested to join the Mums for Lungs family.

You can help to raise awareness of School Streets by chatting to other parents and discussing the issue at Parent Teacher Association meetings. If you think there is support for the idea, you can contact your headteacher and suggest they ask the local council to trial a School Street. Just a note of caution, School Streets is not suitable for every school – for example those on busy main roads.

Currently local authorities are reluctant to implement School Streets on busy main roads; there are fears that major road closures would cause traffic jams and create a backlash. Even if this is the case, it’s still worth raising awareness at your school. We’d like to think that in years to come keeping roads clear for children will become a widely accepted idea. You could ask your headteacher for other anti-pollution measures, such as putting a green screen around the school, changing the main entrance of the school onto a side street if possible, or to tackle idling drivers outside the school gates. You could also ask your council for traffic calming measures outside the school. A really good first step is to set up your own group of concerned parents. Here are some tips for schools.

Air pollution and the climate crisis are bound up together, as fossil fuels play such a large part in both these crises. As well as the toxic gases like nitrogen dioxide which are released when we burn petrol or diesel as fuel in vehicles, carbon dioxide (CO2) is also released. According to the Department for Transport, transport is the largest emitting sector of greenhouse gas emissions producing 27% of the UK’s total CO2 emissions in 2019 , the last year statistics are available before the Covid19 pandemic affected emissions. Emissions from this sector have not been falling as fast as in other sectors of the economy, such as electricity generation. This is partly due to the large number of cars on the road.

Having our flyers to hand out can make approaching drivers much easier. We have a variety of approaches, but one of our volunteers gives the following advice: “I usually wave rather than knock on the window (always smiling) and gently either say ‘will you be here for long?’ or ‘do you need your engine on right now?’. This usually opens up a bit of a chat and once I engage, if someone is open to a discussion I say ‘Can I just give you this flyer with all the info about how harmful idling is to both you and/or children?’. By this point most people have already switched off. Most you win and some you lose, but handing out the flyer is really helpful. Even if they don’t switch off immediately they might think about it later.” Download our Idling flyer

Enforcement of anti-idling lies with local councils. Councils can ask traffic wardens to enforce idling rules, but enforcement is poor because of a lack of resources. There are also loopholes such as the fact that wardens can only fine drivers if they refuse to turn off. You can consider emailing or talking to your ward councillors or cabinet member for environment/traffic/clean air; find out what they are doing and ask them to ensure that parking wardens have the powers to enforce idling.

Let your elected representatives know you care about air pollution. Your MP and councillors will only take action if they think enough people are angry, and that air pollution is an issue which will lose votes. Send councillors, MPs and ministers at departments such as DEFRA an email. We regularly run letter writing campaigns on our website so look out for our latest action.

The London Mayor Sadiq Khan has previously set up scrappage schemes in line with the introduction of the ULEZ. We welcome the latest £110m scheme for the August 2023 expansion, especially the option to get more money overall if you take part of your payment in the form of a bus and tram season ticket. Mums for Lungs and other groups have repeatedly lobbied the government and we are disappointed with the outcome so far.

EVs are becoming more popular and offer some solutions in terms of reducing carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from road transport. However EVs release around the same amount of Particulate Matter (PM) into the atmosphere as combustion engines, through tyre wear and the fact that they are generally heavier. Added to this, simply replacing the diesel/petrol fleet with EVs will do little to reduce congestion and make streets safer for walking and cycling.

Mums for Lungs is a small organisation of part-time staff greatly supported by volunteers across the country. As such we need to be very focused in our work; we cannot campaign on everything that impacts air pollution and so we constantly review our priorities and campaigns. Our aim is for air pollution to be reduced as quickly as possible to improve everyone’s health, especially that of children and the vulnerable. Therefore, our campaigns focus on schemes and policies that are proven to reduce air pollution widely and where we believe our voice can have the biggest impact with our limited resources. We are generally focused on holding Government to account, reducing pollution from transport through Clean Air Zones, School Streets and phasing out diesel vehicles, and we are one of the leading voices in the campaign against wood burning as a secondary mode of heating. We sometimes collaborate or lend support to other organisations’ campaigns and we feature all our own campaigns on our campaigns page, so take a look here if you want to know more about them. Please email us if you would like us to support your campaign or if you want to get involved with ours.

No! We chose the name Mums for Lungs because we thought it sounded good. We’ve become quite well known through the name. We have many dads, grandparents and those who do not have children who support and campaign with us.