Hackney primary school launches engine idling campaign

A primary school in Homerton is taking on engine idling with a new campaign aimed at educating drivers about the impacts on air quality and children’s health.

A series of posters pinned to the gates outside Daubeney primary urge drivers to ‘Kill your engine’, as the school attempts to cut the amount of dirty air that pupils breathe in from idling cars.

A study last year found that children exposed to roadside air pollution could have their lung growth stunted by up to 14 per cent.

Headteacher Gregory Logan said: “We all want the best for children but many drivers do not to make the connection between their idling habit and the poor quality of the air our pupils breathe.

“This poster campaign seeks to educate our community about idling cars at the moment that it’s most impactful – right when it’s happening. We look forward to seeing an improvement in our air quality as a result.”

Local design studio Accept & Proceed created the posters and a batch of A6 flyers that it hopes will empower people to approach and educate drivers who are letting their engines run.

One message reads: “Idling is worse for the environment than driving.”

Another says: “Ten minutes outputs around one pound of toxic fumes into our atmosphere.”

Each one concludes with the line: “Kill your engine.”  

Accept & Proceed has also created a web portal at killyourengine.com, where visitors can customise, download and print their own posters.

Studio founder David Johnston said: “It’s a sad but common situation that people want to ask idling drivers to turn their engines off but often feel uncomfortable doing so without being literally armed with the facts.

“As we started to create posters to distribute at schools in Hackney, where some of our children are pupils, we realised this is a problem at thousands of schools all across the country, affecting the people who need our protection the most.

“So it also became important that we make the resources available to anyone who needs it.”

The flyers and posters can be found at both Daubeney Primary School and Daubeney Nursery.