Pollution is killing people in Melbourne’s west

On a drizzly Sunday morning in early March, around 200 people gathered in Yarraville Gardens to protest air pollution in Melbourne’s western suburbs. Kids held placards that read “Clean our air”, “Protect our health” and “Filter the stacks”.

The protest was organised by the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group (MTAG) to demand the state government and Transurban (the private company building the West Gate Tunnel) install proper filtration systems on the tunnel’s ventilation stacks. Without filtration, the ventilation stacks are nothing more than primitive chimneys releasing untreated exhaust fumes. MTAG has been organising protests like this for decades. Martin Wurt, rally chair and MTAG President, told the rally he could recall taking his now 30-year-old son to these rallies as a child.

As a transport, industry and logistics hub, Melbourne's inner west is subject to very high transport emissions, especially from trucks. The West Gate Tunnel will reroute trucks away from residential streets in the area. But the toxic diesel exhaust fumes of an expected 16,000 daily trucks will be released into Footscray, Seddon, South Kingsville, Altona North, Newport and Spotswood.

The technology and infrastructure to install filtration systems in the vent stacks already exist and could be used. But former planning minister Richard Wynne decided not to impose this costly burden on the two major construction companies building the tunnel, instead opting to gamble with residents’ health, vaguely committing to future filtration installation only “if needed”.

Diesel fumes are a group one carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization, on par with cigarette smoke and asbestos. No exposure to diesel fumes is “safe”, and any dose causes damage. They contain a cocktail of at least 450 toxic chemicals, including arsenic, benzene dioxins, formaldehyde and the two most carcinogenic chemicals ever discovered, 3-nitrobenzanthrone and 1,8-dinitropyrene. They cause inflammation, oxidative stress, immunosuppression, and mutagenicity in cells. The ultrafine particulate matter is small enough to be absorbed through the lungs into the blood, which delivers it to our organs, including the brain.

The urgent necessity of measures that will improve air quality is evidenced by a shocking litany of health issues caused by air pollution impacting the inner west. According to Social Health Atlas data from 2019, the City of Maribyrnong has a 26 percent higher risk of premature mortality from respiratory diseases, a 41 percent higher risk of heart disease and a 40 percent higher risk of stroke compared to the national average. It has the highest rate of stroke of anywhere in Victoria, despite having a relatively young population and low smoking and obesity rates.

Children are among the most vulnerable to the harmful effects of air pollution. A 2020 report by the state government revealed that childhood asthma rates are higher in Melbourne’s west than anywhere else in the state, and hospital admission rates for respiratory illness among children in Maribyrnong are 70 percent higher than the Victorian average. In May 2023, the Maribyrnong City Council voted unanimously to declare an official health emergency.

Rally speakers highlighted the ongoing neglect of the western suburbs by state governments, which allow greedy capitalists to treat the area as a toxic dumping ground, leaving residents to deal with the consequences. The area sees frequent factory fires that blanket surrounding suburbs in toxic smoke, including the chemical factory fire in Derrimut last year which took four days to extinguish. Brooklyn, a suburb further west, is Melbourne’s most polluted.

The prioritisation of profit over people is doing immeasurable damage to human health. Residents of Melbourne’s west have been neglected for decades and deserve better.

To show your support for this campaign, sign the MTAG petition to demand the installation of filtration systems on the West Gate Tunnel ventilation stacks.