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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Sarah Johnson in Cotonou

Pollution revolution: can electric motorbikes help clean up Benin’s air?

Two rows of drivers sit on green motorbikes.
Riders prepare to test-drive electric motorbikes in Cotonou, Benin. Photograph: Coffi Seraphin Zounyekpe/Reuters

The streets of Cotonou, Benin’s largest city, have been Domingo Soule’s workplace for 35 years. The 50-year-old motorcycle taxi driver spends his days driving for miles on roads shrouded in exhaust fumes, picking up customers and taking them to where they want to go.

He is one of more than 250,000 moto-taxi drivers in the west African country, where most people use two-wheelers to get around. But Soule has developed a cough from breathing in air pollution, he believes, and at the end of each day his eyes hurt.

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