The Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) is toying with the idea of building an "Air Purification Tower", modelled on a similar project in the northern part of China, to solve urban air pollution.
Kobsak Pootrakul, the party's spokesman, said the idea arose during talks with Cao Junji, the head of the Earth Environment Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The institute has built an experimental 100-metre tall tower, dubbed the world's biggest air purifier, in the province of Shaanxi in northern China to solve air pollution.
Mr Cao attended a forum on air pollution held at Mahidol University last Wednesday to mark World Environment Day.
"The party is interested in using innovation such as air filtering systems and clean technology to tackle air pollution," Mr Kobsak told the media yesterday at a briefing on the party's policies.
"Air pollution leads to illness and that culminates in a massive burden on the public health care budget," said Mr Kobsak.
For instance, during the air pollution caused by PM2.5 in Bangkok during December last year to January,
The Kasikorn Research Centre estimated the financial loss caused by haze in Bangkok during December and January amounted to at least 2.6 billion baht.
To tackle the problem, the PPRP is advocating four policies, said Mr Kobsak. They are the promulgation of the Clean Air Act, using clean technology, improving air monitoring systems and tacking open burning in public forests and on farmland.
He said local environmental experts are drafting the Clean Air Act which he expects to be a popular piece of legislation.
"We hope this law will be a breath of fresh air. Similar legislation has been adopted in many countries such as the US, UK, Singapore and Malaysia.
If this draft becomes law in Thailand, it will be the first step towards the country improving its air quality over the coming years," he said.
In addition, Mr Kobsak said the party will promote clean technology such as transforming farm waste into sellable biofuels to dissuade them from open burning.
