Britain’s ageing ice cream vans are belching out pollution

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Even buying an ice cream from a van could be a health hazard, in Britain at least, according to the Mail on Sunday’s roadside test results. A pre-existing condition might be triggered by the fumes, they say. The anti-diesel campaign rumbles on.

Diesel-engined ice cream vans are spewing out dangerously high levels of a deadly pollutant which is especially harmful to young children, a Mail on Sunday investigation has revealed.

The engines are kept running while the vans are parked to power their fridges, leaving queuing families to breathe in a pollutant that can trigger asthma attacks after just a few minutes’ exposure and is responsible for thousands of deaths each year.

Known as black carbon, the soot-like substance is particularly dangerous for babies and stunts the growth of children’s lungs as well as causing cancer and dementia.

Our reporters found families being exposed to levels of black carbon more than 40 times the limit recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The readings were so high that a leading expert in children’s health warned even a one-off exposure for ten minutes could cause serious problems for a youngster with existing breathing problems.

Professor Jonathan Grigg, head of paediatric respiratory medicine at Queen Mary University of London, said: ‘Certainly, in the case of a child with asthma there is a risk that exposure to black carbon at the levels you have recorded could bring on an attack.’

Continued here.