EU Commission proposes tougher pollution rules

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s executive arm sought on Wednesday to toughen up pollution restrictions to ensure that harmful pollutants are eliminated by 2050 to potentially save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

The European Commission’s proposals center on air, waste and water pollution, and need the backing of the EU parliament and member states before they can be made mandatory. That is likely to take many months.

Air pollution is the biggest threat to the bloc’s 450 million citizens. The proposals include the doubling of limits to permissible fine air particles by 2030. Such particles are make up a significant part of air pollution overall, which the EU says is killing nearly 300,000 people a year.

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