As air worsens, New Delhi turns to masks
NEW DELHI: It isn't just sweaters the kindergartners are wearing as they pour out of their classrooms onto the lawns of the American Embassy School in Delhi.
They are also wearing face masks.
The school does not require students to wear air filtration masks against the polluted air here, the worst in the world, in the estimation of the World Health Organization. But it has created what its director calls "a culture of acceptance" around wearing them.
It helps that they come in wild prints, made by a San Francisco company, many in fabrics from this year's spring and summer collections of a top Indian fashion designer, Manish Arora. The Tiger's Den, the campus store, has sold 800 this school year alone.
With expatriates and health-conscious Indians leading the way, residents of the Delhi metropolitan area of 25 million people are finally taking steps to protect themselves from the health-threatening atmosphere, as people in Beijing and some other heavily polluted Asian cities have already done.
New Delhi has long been covered with smog, but concerns escalated in early 2014, when the WHO study ranked New Delhi the worst. Then the US Embassy here began making its air pollution data publicly available. A government pollution board stepped up its efforts to consistently measure and report its findings.
"The catalyst was the data becoming available," said Paul Chmelik, director of the American school.
Shri Ram School, an elite private school, canceled sports day this winter because strenuous activity was deemed unsafe in such polluted air. The Delhi high court asked the government to take action to improve the air, saying that living in New Delhi was like "living in a gas chamber."
In January, the government restricted private cars in New Delhi to alternate days during a two-week test. To general surprise, the city's famously lawless motorists actually followed the plan. The government plans to repeat the driving rules in April.
They are also wearing face masks.
The school does not require students to wear air filtration masks against the polluted air here, the worst in the world, in the estimation of the World Health Organization. But it has created what its director calls "a culture of acceptance" around wearing them.
It helps that they come in wild prints, made by a San Francisco company, many in fabrics from this year's spring and summer collections of a top Indian fashion designer, Manish Arora. The Tiger's Den, the campus store, has sold 800 this school year alone.
With expatriates and health-conscious Indians leading the way, residents of the Delhi metropolitan area of 25 million people are finally taking steps to protect themselves from the health-threatening atmosphere, as people in Beijing and some other heavily polluted Asian cities have already done.
New Delhi has long been covered with smog, but concerns escalated in early 2014, when the WHO study ranked New Delhi the worst. Then the US Embassy here began making its air pollution data publicly available. A government pollution board stepped up its efforts to consistently measure and report its findings.
"The catalyst was the data becoming available," said Paul Chmelik, director of the American school.
Shri Ram School, an elite private school, canceled sports day this winter because strenuous activity was deemed unsafe in such polluted air. The Delhi high court asked the government to take action to improve the air, saying that living in New Delhi was like "living in a gas chamber."
In January, the government restricted private cars in New Delhi to alternate days during a two-week test. To general surprise, the city's famously lawless motorists actually followed the plan. The government plans to repeat the driving rules in April.
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