Air quality campaigns

Find out about the different campaigns in Wandsworth that aim to raise awareness of air quality and pollution.

Clean Air Night

Clean Air Night aims to raise awareness of the health impacts of air pollution produced by wood and solid fuel burning in the home. Our events highlight the issues of:

• Wood burning smoke contains fine particles (PM2.5) which are harmful to health
• Wood burning contributes to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, and we cannot reproduce trees fast enough to offset the carbon emitted by burning wood
• Wood burning is almost always more expensive than other forms of heating
• Wood burning impacts those burning in their home

For further information and access to resources visit Clean Air Night (Global Action Plan).

Clean Air Day

Clean Air Day aims to encourage everyone to take action to help reduce air pollution, we hold many events around the borough emphasising on:

• Cars and vans (petrol and deisel) are the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and are the biggest contributor to local toxic air pollution of air pollution in the UK, harming both our health and the planet
• It’s important to take action to reduce emissions produced by these vehicles and to move to the cleanest and most sustainable methods of travel
• If everyone switched just one car journey a month for a bus trip, there would be a billion fewer car journeys each year (cpt-uk.org) 

Visit Clean Air Hub (Global Action Plan) for everything you need to know about Clean Air Day.

Hold a free street party to mark Clean Air Day

Celebrating Clean Air Day with your neighbours is a great way to:

• Bring the local community together
• Allow people to experience the streets free of motor traffic
• Give children the space to play safely
• Reduce local pollution

To hold a Clean Air Day street party between 21 and 22 June 2025, submit your application by Friday 6 June 2025. Apply to hold a street party.

Ask About Asthma

Ask About Asthma aims to:

• Raise awareness about children and young people’s asthma
• Increase understanding that air pollution can trigger attacks
• Improve young people's asthma care

We spread the word that there are:

• Different themes each year including helping children and young people with asthma to live their best lives
• Free daily webinars, podcasts, videos and blogs about different asthma topics
• Free downloadable resources and toolkits for schools and families

For more information visit Asthma - Transformation Partners in Health and Care.

Car Free Day

Car Free Day aims to promote active travel, champion traffic-free city centres and reclaim streets away from vehicles for people to use. We promote:

• Everyone to leave the car at home and travel by public transport, walk or cycle
• Less traffic for a positive impact on health and wellbeing, improved local air quality and reduced carbon emissions
• Play Streets across the borough

Find out more from World Car Free Day.

Hold a free street party to mark Car Free Day

Celebrating Clean Air Day with your neighbours is a great way to bring the local community together, allow people to experience the streets free of motor traffic, give children the space to play safely, and reduce air pollution.

To hold a Car Free Day street party between 20 and 21 September, submit your application any time from 11 July until 5 September 2025. Apply to hold a street party.

Idling Action events

Our Idling Action events aim to help reduce localised air pollution caused by motorists who leave their engines running when parked.

We explain the health impacts when we:

• Deliver road side events to educate both motorists and pedestrians at particularly significant locations such as outside schools and hospitals
• Deliver school workshops and assemblies educating pupils around the impacts of air pollution, as schools are idling vehicle hot spots, and air pollution disproportionately affects children’s developing lungs
• Engage with businesses providing vehicle fleet training and free resources

Visit Idling Action London for information and resources.

If you are interested in supporting any of these campaigns by assisting at any of our events, contact the Air Quality Team at pollution@merton.gov.uk.