BANGKOK, Nov18 (TNA) – The Pollution Control Department, the Land Transport Department, traffic police and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration vowed to take serious legal action against the owners of vehicles emitting hazardous black exhaust to reduce the impacts of fine dust.
The campaign against particulate matter 2.5 micrometers and less in diameter (PM2.5) that will continue until March next year will see 20 exhaust fume checkpoints on main and minor roads in Bangkok where officials will impose maximum punishment on vehicles billowing black smoke.
Attapol Charoenchansa, director-general of the Pollution Control Department, said the action was a part of an ad hoc plan of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to cope with PM2.5 in 2022.
The plan emphasized legal action on all vehicles emitting hazardous black smoke. Officials at the checkpoints would suspend the use of such vehicles until they were maintained and stop giving off black fumes, he said.
Officials would block vehicles with black smoke from entering urban areas as PM2.5 always rose in the dry season from October to March every year and vehicles, especially those with diesel engines, were the major sources of the fine dust, Mr. Attapol said.
People can inform officials of any vehicles with black smoke at the 1650 hotline number of the Pollution Control Department, the 1584 hotline number of the Land Transport Department, https://www.facebook.com/dlt1584 and Line@: @1584DLT.
