Cleaning up London’s toxic air

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/04/03/pricing-poor-londoners-out-of-…

https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2015/09/what-other-cities-can-learn-f…

I have gotten rid of my diesel car and now walk and use public transport. We conserve energy and water in the home and recycle as much as we can.

We are reaching a tipping point with our climate. By taking action to reduce emissions, London- one of the world's great capitals- is sending out a message to the world and encouraginig other governments, cities and its residents to take action themselves. We are not alone in this. So its wrong to complain that one cities actions are pointless. London and other cities are taling action and also raising the profile and urgency of the need to act now to save our future.

We have changed our electricity tariff to renewables and had a smart meter fitted, this led to switching off more appliances when not in use and filling kettles with sufficient water needed and not over filling. We have replaced as many lamps with LED equivalents as possible

We have changed our gas tariff to a carbon offsetting one, our supplier has stated that a smart meter cannot be fitted. Our thermostats have been set back to 18 rather than 21 degrees.

We use public transport within Greater London and only use the car for longer journeys mainly due to the number of changes required on public transport.

Some subsidies with installation of solar PV and solar thermal would help make change affordable. Promise of long term savings doesn’t help with finding the initial capital outlay

Fitted solar panels (via a collective set up to bulk -buy at a discopunt), LED Lighting, new boiler and raidiators - That combination has slashed my gas and electric bills and consumption. A more efficient boiler has reduced water consumption too, which is now metered. I have just insulated the one single-brick wall bedroom using Sempertex so hope that will make a further difference. We have spent about £10,000 over two years doing this but because we work from home, we expect to get our money back in about 10-12 years.

All lighting replaced with LEDs.

Loft insulated. All windows (bar three very awkward to access ones) now double glazed.

Car mileage reduced, using public transport more. Have an older diesel car, but reluctant to replace it at the moment as electric car availabilty is limited.

Increased cycling, but roads seem too dangerous to make longer journeys by bike.

I live in a Victorian house and have done many things to insulate it better -- replacing the iron weights in the window sashes with lead weights, adding magnetic secondary glazing panels, putting chimney balloons in the chimneys and reflective panels behind the radiators, adding a cover to the letterbox. Now I would like to retrofit the house to achieve lower carbon emissions, while still retaining the history of the building. For example I would like to replace the gas boiler and radiators, generate electricity in a way that is acceptable in a conservation area, have a grey water tank to save flushing the toilets with drinking quality water, insulate the walls (no cavity in 1850s buildings). But I have no idea where to start, where to find reliable specialists to advise on retrofitting, how to work with my Council (Lambeth) to help maintain the character of the conservation area while helping to lower carbon emissions.

I tried to cycle into central London for work, but after just a couple of weeks I had to stop, because the exhaust fumes from cycling next to the traffic was having a really negative impact on my throat and also my lungs (I started getting asthma-like symptoms such as wheezing, even though I don't have asthma).

So by trying to reduce my own pollution by cycling, I directly increased the amount of pollution I actually breathe in, which makes it difficult to continue doing.

The ULEZ is a really good idea, and I hope that it starts to register on the air quality readings. It must be expanded, as the current plans are, to cover a wide area, and short car journeys (such as Uber trips) have to have their concessions removed unless they are truly zero-emission on the road (most of the Prius cars aren't).

Please expand the ULEZ and please crack down further on the huge diesel coaches and lorries on our roads!

We have had hot water solar panels for 10 years and electrical solar panels for  7 years.  Not only do we get free electricity and gas to run our hot water and our appliances during daylight hours, we get paid for every unit generated, every 3 months. To date we have recovered over 8,000 pounds and payments last for 20 years and are inflation proof. The most obtuse thing this governmen thas done, when it comes to pollution, was to cancel the payments made to owners of solar panels. If payments were restored to a sensible level we would see solar panels of both types appearing on roofs all over the country. Businesses would be encouraged to site these on their large roofs. Just think of the pollution that would not be generated and the free energy there to be used both day and night with a battery system included.

I have fitted high performance roof insulation, and installed both thermal and photovoltaic solar panels. I use my bicycle much more for shopping and local journeys, and I have kept my 26 year old tiny engined petrol car to save the vast amount of carbon involved in scrapping and manufacture of a replacement vehicle. 

I have insulated my roofspace using a high performance foam product, fitted solar panels both thermal & photovoltaic. I am using a bicycle much more for local shopping and transport and I have kept my 26 year old 1 litre petrol car instead of buying a new one because I want to avoid the carbon produced by manufacture and scrapping. In the garden I have planted many more native species, allowed grass to grow longer, and kept my front garden instead of making it into car parking like everyone else in the street seems to have done. I have secondary glazing, but have kept my original timber windows. This provides better noise insulation and preserves the environment by minimising the use of Upvc.

where I work my company is awful when it comes to energy saving.  Ive managed to get the security guards to turn off the lights in offices which aren’t being used but that’s about it. It’s not policy, which I think it should be. Our building is old and extremely inefficient.  During the winter when the heating is on, workers turn on the air con if it’s too hot in the offices rather than turn down the radiators!  Most of the people who I work with simply don’t care.

I’ve had recycling bins installed though that wasn’t as easy as it should have been.  I work for a government organisistion, who come under the Mayor’s Office, and its environmental credentials are woeful. I’d like to see solar panels on the roof of our building, it’s large enough. Motion censors should be installed in all offices which can turn off the lights when rooms are unoccupied.  

All our fleet vehicles should be electric as we only operate in London, but they’re not. There should be more cycle lanes and more roads closed off to through traffic.  I cycle to work though that isn’t easy sharing the roads with heavy goods vehicles and millions of taxis.  Isn’t it about time taxi numbers were reduced, too many adding to congestion and polluting us all?  Why aren’t there more parcel delivery vehicles pedal powered instead of all these white vans clogging up the roads?

The mayors office needs to do a lot more and bloody fast, time is running out.

The Mayor could single handly solve the issue if he stopped talking, the hot air he spouts on a daily basis must be the same as HGV.

I totally agree with the comments regarding Heathrow & low flying aircraft Heathrow is a source of not only toxic chemical pollution but also intolerable noise pollution together with low flying helicopters it helps to diminish Londoners quality of life until the mayor of London and other faceless public servants put the public and Londoners first your surely just going through the motions in order to justify your existence 

I have an electric car. Solar panels on the roof. Have campagned for and implemented a play street on our street. Campagned the local school where my kids go, and Camden Council to close the street outside the school for drop off and pick up hours of the day, but failed. Got lost in beuocracy and bad decision making and inactice council members! But my plea is: please close more streets entirely for traffic (especially around schools), fine people who idle on the spot. Create more cycle lanes. Have car free Sundays and clean up the horrible London air pollution asap. Thanks

I live on the outskirts of London and only use my car for local and out of London travel. My car is small and efficient with a 0.9 l petrol engine. Most green I can be on my budget. I live in rented accommodation and unfortunately this has very poor insulation. My landlord is the council but this doesn't seem to help. Better maintenance on rented accommodation would help a lot.