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The Bogotá neighborhoods of Kennedy and Bosa are the most polluted.

Engineer Néstor Rojas, member of GICA.

The sustainable engineering seminar hopes to turn into a gauge to assess the fittingness of creating the program.

The particular matter of Suba has iodine. All proof indicates it is coming from the Zipaquirá air.

Suspended material, such as dust is 9% and doubled in Kennedy due to the bad condition of the streets.

Reducing the upper limits of particulate matter which are the most damaging to health, currently at 50 micrograms per cubic meter to 20 (as suggested by the World Health Organization) could avoid early deaths in neighborhoods such as Kennedy and Bosa, which have the greatest pollution levels in Bogotá. 

Furthermore diminishing the pollution for 10 years (Decennial Decontamination Plan) could avoid early death to at least 5,000 people and savings due to respiratory issues of approximately US $3.4 thousand million. In Bosa, 3,420 people would have greater life expectancy and the city could save of as much as US $3.32 thousand million. 

These figures are associated not only to healthcare savings due to pollution but also to a city with greater air quality, harboring greater amount of people with better productive capability, a fact that has an impact on the economy. 

For these neighborhoods, the main cause of pollution is industrial production (abundant in nitrates) whose contribution to particulate matter is 45% and 20% is dust coming from the bad condition of the streets. This last element for the Suba neighborhood, for instance is half of the prior with 9%; and most of the pollution is produced by automobiles (60%.) 

In Suba they also measured pollution concentration (18%) and noticed high iodine levels, indicating that for this particular area pollution contribution is due to particulate matter air displacement coming from the nearby municipalities of Zipaquirá and Cajicá. 

Sustainable engineering 

The results were presented by the UNal Air Quality Research Group (GICA, for its Spanish Acronym) in developing the Sustainable Engineering Program (PINSUS, for its Spanish Acronym). This program seeks to assess and improve practices to adjust to the challenging environmental requirements. 

For Néstor Rojas, Department of Chemistry Professor and GICA Coordinator the program is the structure which could provide clues to assess the fittingness to create a Sustainable Engineering Program. 

UNal Systems Engineer, Industrial Engineering doctoral candidate and PINSUS member, Hernán Cortés, says this has four essential linchpins through which engineering faculties should relate to sustainability. 

The first corresponds to sustainable behaviors which are related to principles and values around a concept; the second, knowledge for sustainability, linked to sharing knowledge and experiences; third is sustainable management related to faculty operational improvement and fourth, social projection, linked to a positive impact beyond the university campus.