The European Parliament's environment committee has overwhelmingly voted to support a tightening of air pollution rules.

Members of the committee supported a report on the revision of the current air pollution directive, voting in favour with 39 votes for to 11 against, according to Euractiv.com.

The committee called for stricter targets on the reduction of ultra-fine particulate matter and also voted for levels of larger particulate matter to be reduced to a maximum of 30 millionths of a gram per cubic meter by 2010.

However, the plans for stricter targets met with opposition from some MEPs, who managed to inject some flexibility into the new proposals.

Some environmental campaigners suggest that the amendments may severely weaken the legislation.

"Today's vote would almost double the number of days a year on which particulate matter limit values can be exceeded and, in addition, allow member states to postpone compliance with air quality norms by more than 10 years," said Finnish MEP Satu Hassi.

"This flies in the face of recommendations from European health scientists and falls far behind US air quality standards."

Platinum is used in catalytic converter technology, designed to cut harmful emmissions from vehicles.

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