Choking Mexico City, in which even buildings are involved in air purification

Mexico City was clearly not lucky with its geographical location, and its modern residents have to pay for the mistakes of centuries ago. The Spaniards, who founded the city on the site of the former Aztec capital, could not even imagine that this city would face big environmental problems, including those related to its inconvenient location.

Mexico City is not only the most populous city in the country, but also one of the largest in North America. Its population is over 9 million people. But these are only residents of the capital itself, and if we take into account the population of the adjacent points that form the urban agglomeration of Mexico City, we get a more impressive figure - more than 21 million people. Most of these people work or study in the capital, regularly being in a city that is suffocating from smog.

Air pollution is the main environmental problem in the Mexican capital. The reason for this is not only a large number of industrial enterprises and vehicles, but also bad weather conditions. The fact is that the city is located in the intermountain basin, which has an unfavorable microclimate from an environmental point of view. From all sides, Mexico City is surrounded by mountains that restrict air circulation and make it difficult to disperse pollutants. As a result of this, a constant cloud of a mixture of various chemical pollutants hangs over the city, which is visible any day with the naked eye.

Experts have repeatedly stated that permissible concentrations of pollutants are exceeded tens of times. Carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, suspended solids and other components of metropolitan air adversely affect the health of residents, especially children. Studies have revealed a high level of respiratory and cardiovascular disease, which scientists associate with terrible air quality. Experts even claim that breathing cigarette smoke is more beneficial than Mexico City air. For every inhabitant of the capital, 4 tons of carbon dioxide are accounted for. In the 90s of the last century, the city was recognized by the UN experts as the dirtiest city on the planet, after which the authorities began to actively take measures to improve the situation.

In order to reduce the level of emissions from automobiles, the city authorities limited the use of cars by private individuals, and also carried out a reform of the entire transport system, improving infrastructure and reducing the number of traffic jams. In addition, a number of highly hazardous industrial enterprises were removed or closed. Trees also recently came to the rescue of people. In addition to traditional methods, quite original solutions are also used to improve the situation with air quality. For example, the facade of one of the city buildings was turned into an air purification device.

The walls of one of the hospitals in the capital are covered with innovative tiles. It is not only decorative, but also has the ability to capture pollutants. The finest titanium dioxide coating under the influence of sunlight begins to actively absorb toxic substances, including nitrogen oxides, benzene, formaldehyde and sulfur oxide.

Another non-standard solution to the problem is green street art, which is also based on the action of titanium dioxide. Only in this case is this substance added to the composition of the special paint from which real works of art are created. This technology was called Airlite and is successfully used in several megacities of the world, including Mexico City.

The measures taken, of course, improved the situation, but could not finally solve the problem of air pollution in Mexico City. Given the geographical specifics of the location of the city, as well as the constant growth of the population, this at the moment, alas, is not possible.