Burning tyres amid protests causing serious air pollution in twin cities.

ISLAMABAD -- The air quality of twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad is deteriorating due to the burning of tyres amid protests of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf workers causing congestion on routes and interchanges across both the cities.

The PTI workers took to countrywide protests on November 4 (Friday) after the party chairman Imran Khan got injured while leading his long march to the federal capital as he was shot in his shin near Wazirabad city of the Punjab province.

The party workers had blocked routes and set tyres at fire near Shamsabad on Murree Road, Peshawar Road, whereas diversions were placed for both sides of traffic at Margallah Pahari point of GT Road and traffic coming from Taxila via GT Road to Rawalpindi. Moreover, alternatively, traffic was diverted to Srinagar Highway from Chungi No. 26 due to the protesters choking the thoroughfares.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the impact of fires due to burning of fires was highly health injurious and environment damaging and were difficult to handle.

It added that these fires risk air, soil, and water pollution.

"However, if a tyre fire occurs, tyres break down into hazardous compounds including gases, heavy metals, and oil. The average passenger car tire is estimated to produce over two gallons of oil when burned," the US EPA stated on its website.

The oil released by tyres during burning were discharged directly into ground and surface water and hence making it a significant environment pollutant and highly combustible material.

"Air pollution caused by tyre fires may include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, styrene, phenols, and butadiene," the US EPA said.

The Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) daily air quality report noted that the air pollutants ratio recorded were below permissible limits and the air quality was healthy as a day earlier rainfall impact and cloudy weather subsided the air pollutants.

The air quality data was collected by Pak-EPA for 24 hours based on three intervals of...