"Research showed truck-related releases of nitrogen dioxide, which can cause asthma, concentrated around some 150,000 warehouses nationwide."

"They are mammoth warehouses large enough to fit football fields inside them, handling many of the more than 20 billion packages Americans send and receive each year.

But for people who live around them, the round-the-clock semitrailer traffic at these giant hubs significantly worsens air pollution, according to a new NASA-funded study that tracked pollutants from space.

The research, led by scientists at George Washington University, is the first of its kind; it used satellite technology to measure a harmful traffic-related pollutant called nitrogen dioxide, zooming in on nearly 150,000 large warehouses across the United States. They found that nitrogen dioxide, which can lead to asthma and other health problems, jumped 20 percent on average near the warehouses. At the busiest facilities the increase was higher."

Hiroko Tabuchi reports for the New York Times July 24, 2024. [2]