Air Quality tells us how healthy (good) the air is to breathe. If the air quality is bad then it has more harmful things, called pollution, in it. Good air quality tells us that it has less pollution in it and is better for us to breathe.

Air is a gas and is all around us. 

Air contains oxygen which is essential for our bodies to live.

Air pollution describes harmful gases in the air we breathe. When we have poor air quality it is because some gases have reached harmful levels.  Air pollutants can be released from natural sources like volcanoes, but humans are responsible for most of the pollution in our air today. Air pollution leads to poor air quality which affects all living things; humans, animals and plants.

The main sources of air pollution are cars, factories and power stations. Each year the number of cars driven on Britain's roads increases. Every car burns fuel of some kind and the fumes that come out of the exhaust pipe contain a number of harmful gases. We all rely on electricity to live. We need it to light our homes, to run all our appliances and to charge up all our mobile phones! Electricity is made in power stations by burning coal, oil and gas. As the fuel is burnt the waste gases are released into the air. Although in modern times a lot has been done to cut down on the level of harmful gases that are produced, we are still releasing far too much pollution into the air.

The gases which affect our air quality are:

The air can also contain too much Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Ozone and CFC's. These gases are known to cause the earth to warm-up, this is called Climate Change. Although this isn't included within Air Quality, they have many things in common so keep a look out on the site for more information about it!

In the past there was much more pollution from homes and factories than there is today. This was because there weren't any laws to control the release of harmful gases into the air and because people didn't realise how harmful some of the gases were. In 1952 there were over 4000 deaths in London due to smog. Smog was created when smoke containing lots of harmful gases was mixed with fog and settled in cities for days on end. This incident became known as the Great London Smog. It was after this that the Government decided to do something about the country's air quality.

See the pages on air and the law to find out how we are protected from the effects of air pollution.