Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 2
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Over 1.250 million old and sub-standard cars ply streets in Iran and pollute air, Iranian MP Hamid Reza Fouladgar said.
Almost 1.9 million old cars were scrapped in Iran over the past 12 years, Fouladgar added, Tasnim news agency reported.
In recent three years, 247,000 cars were scrapped per year on average, he said.
According to a law on scrapping old vehicles, ratified in October 2013, four cars must be scrapped for every imported car, the MP said.
According to the Ministry of Transport and Urban Development, automobile use in Iran has doubled in the past eight years, and over one million cars on the roads are more than 20 years old.
Iranian officials say the old and sub-standard vehicles are responsible for over 70 percent of air pollution in megacities.
Masoumeh Ebtekar, the chairwoman of Iran’s Environmental Protection Organization, has said there are different reasons for air pollution in Tehran, such as industrial activity and public transportation, but sub-standard cars and low quality fuel are mostly to blame.