Editor,

A few weeks ago, I watched a documentary on pollution produced by Chinese investigative journalist Chai Jing. It portrays how China’s air pollution has become a major threat to health.  

On a personal account, she told the story of her daughter born with a tumor possibly due to air pollution. While the film was frightening, the most shocking piece of information in the documentary was that trucks meant for exports to Africa DO NOT have any catalytic converters.I gasped.

So what happens when a car doesn’t have a catalytic converter? Obviously, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the air we breathe. Epidemiological studies have shown some evidence that long-term nitrogen oxide exposure may lead to lung cancer and respiratory diseases.

Statistically speaking, the World Health Organisation estimated that one in eight deaths worldwide resulted from air pollution.

In Rwanda, we have seen a significant spike in car ownership.

With a growing middle class in Rwanda (which is surely set to grow even further), the number of vehicles on our roads will certainly grow exponentially in the near future. This is where Rwanda Bureau of Standards and their counterparts on the rest of the continent should step up and take preventative measures by ensuring that "all” imported cars have catalytic converters.

(Wikipedia: A catalytic converter is a vehicle emissions control device that converts toxic pollutants in exhaust gas to less toxic pollutant. Catalytic converters are used with internal combustion engines fueled by either gasoline or diesel.

Inside a converter, there are two catalysts: one of them tackles nitrogen oxide (NO) pollution by reduction; this breaks NOx into nitrogen and oxygen gases; the other catalyst will work the chemical reaction oxidation; by adding oxygen, oxidation turns carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide (CO2). The overall result is the emission of CO2, Nitrogen and Oxygen all of which are harmless gases since they already exist around us).

Arlette Umuhoza