Рестораны Нью Джерси вместе с приготовлением пиццы и гамбургеров загрязняют окружающую среду

Когда рестораны быстрого питания готовят из продуктов, богатых на холестерин «тяжелую» пищу, они выбрасывают холестерин и другие частицы в атмосферу, загрязнители окружающей среды, которые могут повлиять на здоровье людей, страдающих астмой и другими заболеваниями органов дыхание, говорят ученые.
State and federal air pollution efforts focus on power plants, factories and diesel trucks, but a significant source of particulate pollution in the metropolitan area comes from restaurant emissions — especially the smoke from wood-burning pizza ovens, said Monica Mazurek, a Rutgers University scientist who has been studying particulate matter in urban air for several decades.
Restaurants and wood-burning fireplaces and boilers discharge as much as 20 percent of the particulate matter in the air, and that smoke goes largely unchecked, researchers said.
"We basically have a brown cloud over this area from combustion sources," said Mazurek, a chemist in the university's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
The smoke from restaurants and other wood-burning sources, from residential fireplaces to wood-fired water heaters, is taking on new significance as officials look to further reduce emissions in North Jersey, where the air repeatedly fails several federal standards for particulate levels.
"Wood has been identified as a significant component of regional particulate matter, and restaurants somewhat less so," said William O'Sullivan, director of the state Department of Environmental Protection's air quality division. "We don't have good data, and this is a good area for researchers to fill in the gaps. These sources can produce as much as 20 percent of all particulates."
Working with the air quality monitoring bureaus of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut between 2002 and 2007, Mazurek screened for 100 molecule markers in 700 samples taken at air monitoring stations.
"We found strange results," Mazurek said. "Most of the high concentrations [for wood-burning particulates] were in high-population areas — Elizabeth and Queens — and the numbers were also up during the summer. In Queens they're not burning wood for heat in the late spring and summer. We believe they are being caused by restaurant emissions, including wood-burning ovens for pizzas, and they are not regulated."
Источник: http://www.northjersey.com