Delivering Clean Air

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Internet shopping continues to rise worldwide. That means a lot more delivery vans on the streets of our towns and cities. Those vans and trucks, often powered by dirty diesel engines, are contributing to air pollution problems that can cause significant increases in premature death and great discomfort for people suffering from heart and lung conditions.

As part of the BBC’s So I Can Breathe season Tom Heap sets out to find innovative solutions. Could drones or robots be the answer? Could we cut out the middle man and use 3D printers to create everything we want at home? Perhaps it is simply a matter of converting all those vans to electric or gas power or even carrying out the majority of home deliveries by bike.

With the promise of ever-quicker delivery times the search for a solution becomes ever more urgent if we are to prevent our consumer addiction becoming an air pollution crisis on every doorstep.

(Photo: Tom Heap. Credit: Martin Poyntz-Roberts)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC
0:35.4	Sounds.
0:38.4	Choosing what to watch.
0:39.4	Night after night.
0:41.1	The flicking through. The endless searching is a nightmare. We want to help you. On our
0:46.7	brand new podcast off the telly we share what we've been watching.
0:50.3	Cladie aider. Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming, lovely.
0:55.0	Off the telly with me Joanna Paige and me, Natalie Cassidy,
0:59.0	so your evenings can be a little less searching
1:02.0	and a lot more watching listen on BBC
1:04.7	sounds this is Tom Heep on the BBC World Service and this week we're looking at
1:09.8	the impact of online shopping on our air quality as part of the BBC's so I can breathe season.
1:17.3	Internet shopping is booming and set to be worth four trillion dollars by 2020 with China and many countries across the world
1:25.1	witnessing staggering growth in parcel delivery. But more vans and trucks on the
1:30.4	roads worsens air quality, especially when it comes to the tricky last mile
1:35.2	between the delivery center and the consumer. When big diesel-fueled trucks compete for space in our
1:41.5	cities, they add to the toxic mix, leading to daily breaches of
	...

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