This is often the blind spot of environmental struggles. Environmental degradation has a significant impact on our health. The High Council for Public Health has examined 15 years of health-environment plans implemented by the various governments in France in order to draw lessons. During a seminar before the Ministries of Health and Ecological Transition, doctors and experts from this independent body drew the attention of decision-makers, in particular to the need to reduce air pollution inside schools and nurseries.
Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, fine particles: since 2006, France has reduced air pollution. But not enough in places that welcome children, warns the High Council for Public Health. And yet nurseries and schools are the places most frequented by children after housing. The quality of the air in these spaces is therefore essential for their health, but also for the quality of their learning.
A double pollution
Within the institution, Fabien Squinazi chairs the Commission on environmental risks. ” The child is exposed to double pollution, that which comes from outside due to the proximity of car traffic, but also pollutants emitted inside by furniture, school supplies, cleaning products that will attack his airways “, he explains at the microphone of Lucile Gilbert of the science department. In Saint-Ouen for example, with the financial support of the participatory budget of the Ile-de-France region, electrofiltration air purifiers have been tested for several months.
In 2017, a study by the Indoor Air Quality Observatory conducted in 2013 – 2017 in a representative sample of 301 kindergartens and elementary schools found that benzene, a carcinogen, exceeded regulatory levels in 10% of classrooms.
Since the beginning of January 2023, new regulations require the implementation of action plans to reduce children’s exposure to pollutants. At the same time, measurements of CO2, an indicator of air renewal in premises, reveal that 84% of elementary schools and 51% of nursery schools have at least one classroom with high air containment. First solution, ventilate: “ Opening a window regularly drives out all indoor pollutants. If there is a person who is sick, opening the window will also evacuate the infectious agents “.
Experts also recommend eliminating surrounding sources of pollution by creating pedestrian zones around schools, reducing industrial smoke or even limiting the spreading of pesticides near establishments welcoming children.
Associations mobilize
Regularly associations for the defense of the environment and parents of students on the risks to the health of children from air pollution. This was the case in Paris and the inner suburbs in October 2022 at the initiative of a collective. Eight schools were involved. or again in May of last year when parents and teachers mobilized in front of 15 Parisian schools to demand more “streets for schools”, as part of the European movement Streets for kids which mobilizes nearly 400 schools in 12 countries.
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