The head of Iran’s Department of the Environment, Massoumeh Ebtekar, says the distribution of clean gasoline has resolved the critical air pollution problems in four of the country’s large cities.
IRNA reports that Ebtekar told a meeting of grassroots environmental groups in Mazandaran on the night of Thursday September 11: “Improving gasoline quality in Tehran, Tabriz, Arak and Karaj has resulted in improved air quality, and now other big cities will receive similar treatment.”
She maintained that air quality has gone from critically unhealthy levels to acceptable levels in all of those large cities.
Under the Ahmadinejad administration, petrochemical facilities were engaged in the production of gasoline to overcome shortages faced by the country due to international sanctions on Iran’s oil and gas trade. The gasoline produced by these facilities has now been proved to have been a major contributor to air pollution in the cities, reducing air quality to critically unacceptable levels.
