Liverpool City Council - air quality legislation

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Sunday 21 March 2010

Air quality legislation

There are various forms of air quality legislation which focus on the different aspects of air pollution, but each have a common aim:

• To protect human health and the environment.
• Air quality legislation aims to ensure that pollutant emissions into the atmosphere are not released at concentrations that would seriously damage our health or the environment. 

Legislation in the UK includes:

• The Air Quality Strategy
• The Clean Air Acts
• Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control         

There are also lots of European Directives that set long-term air quality objectives to be adhered to, and these can be found on the EUROPA website.  European legislation acts as a foundation on which the UK Air Quality Strategy objectives are based.

International agreements and recommendations also influence air quality legislation on regional and national scales.  For instance, the World Health Organisation has introduced Guidelines for Air Quality, which are applicable globally.