The European Union will on Wednesday propose tougher legal limits on health-damaging dirty air and rules to make pharmaceutical companies pay to clean up wastewater polluted by their products, the EU's top environmental official said.
"Air pollution is still the largest environmental threat to our health. The impacts are worse for the most vulnerable - children, the elderly, people with certain medical conditions," said EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius.
Air pollution causes 300,000 premature deaths in Europe each year. Sinkevicius said the tougher EU rules could reduce such deaths by 70% over the next ten years. He declined to confirm the exact new EU limits, which will be published on Wednesday. Once proposed, EU countries and the European Parliament must negotiate and approve them.still breach the current EU limits