To improve air quality, the emissions of pollutants from a variety of sources must be decreased. This needs the involvement of different levels of government and co-ordination across numerous sectors and stakeholders.This is due in part to the fact that improving air quality falls within the mandate of national as well as local government environment departments.
Issues with local service delivery and waste management can lead to burning of waste that releases toxic pollutants right at ground level where people breathe. Thus effective air quality management stretches across sectors and levels of government. Another important step that needs to be taken is ensuring robust information on air pollution, especially the amount that is emitted, is available. This isn’t the case at the moment, which makes it difficult to track the trends of pollutiFor example, industrial emissions from regulated sources are collected by the department of forestry, fisheries & the environment. But information on the amount emitted and the emission-reduction technologies that industries are using isn’t available.