Water, food and shelter are essential to life. Even though they’re not the only things, they’re the most basic. Just imagine, if you didn’t have one of them? We would most likely lose our minds and sure enough, fight ourselves for them.

 

Breathing is just as essential to life, as food, water, and shelter. There’s no doubt about it. Us humans automatically take 25,000 breaths a day. Breathing is the process in which our lungs inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide- a process called respiration.After all, you can live for weeks without food, days without water and how long without air? Maybe 6 minutes? Air is the very essence of life.

 

We should have the #RighttoBreath clean air, regardless of where we choose to live. Unfortunately in some places, air pollution seems to be dominant above others. The Carlyle Group’s Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) is an oil refinery in South Philadelphia, 3144 W Passyunk Ave, Philadelphia, PA. The facility has a footprint of 1,300-1,400 acres and sits on the Schuylkill River just above its confluence with the Delaware River. PES is the 10th largest oil refiner in the US, processing 335,000 barrels (14 million gallons) of crude oil per day and the largest oil refinery on the East Coast.  It is also the largest crude unloading facility on the East Coast and contains the largest crude by rail yard in the nation. As of right now, Pes is responsible for 72% of the toxic releases in Philadelphia, according to the EPA. Pes highly throws toxic air pollutants, and also significant amounts of phenol, lead compounds, and antimony compounds, to name a few.

 

It’s unarguable that we need air to breathe, but we deserve the right to breathe clean air. Each year, more than 2.4 million people die from a disease relating to poor air quality. This includes 1.4 million deaths from air pollution. Numbers clearly don’t lie, and sure don’t hide behind walls. We need to give this issue our full attention and stop pretending like it doesn't exist.